


tapes winding forward

by skuls



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, Season/Series 05, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:00:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 48,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27858721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skuls/pseuds/skuls
Summary: Martin gets a closer look at the calendar, and his breath catches in his throat. He's gotten a look at the year, and it's wrong, it's all wrong. 2018. October, 2018. Right there, in Martin's own handwriting, on a Saturday, he's written things on little dates that Martin can't read, because he can't take his eyes off the year. 2018. 2018. They look differently. They have scars they don't recognize. Their hair is longer. 2018.Martin seizes the calendar off the fridge and goes back into the living room. Jon's still at the coffee table, poking through the tapes piled there, but he looks up when Martin comes back in and says, "Martin, where…" with a familiar bite in his voice.Martin ignores him, stops him mid-sentence to say, "Jon, what have you heard about time travel?"---Martin and Jon wake up two years in the future. It goes about as well as can be expected.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 120
Kudos: 451
Collections: TMA Big Bang 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so this is my work for the tma 2020 big bang! it's almost completely written (i have about one chapter left to write), and i am planning to post a chapter every three days or so if able. 
> 
> eternal thanks to the mods of the tma big bang for putting this event together, and to the artists who worked on this fic. i've embedded a couple of the art pieces here, but you can view them all on tumblr as well. @bisexualoftheblade made a title card (seen below), a mood board (https://bisexualoftheblade.tumblr.com/post/636510467380199424/here-is-one-of-my-pieces-for), and another piece of art found here (https://bisexualoftheblade.tumblr.com/post/636510533934284800/here-is-one-of-my-pieces-for). @eternallysadaboutjontim drew the storage room scene (later in this chapter) (also here: https://eternallysadaboutjontim.tumblr.com/post/636511593734291456/accompanying-art-for-ghostbustermelaniekings) @corvidtowers drew this excellent art of martin (https://corvidtowers.tumblr.com/post/636512056832638976/my-piece-for-ghostbustermelanieking-s-work). and @chromaticmelody drew amazing art of a scene from chapter 5 that i will embed when i post. it's all beautiful, amazing art that i love to death so you should definitely check it out.
> 
> general warnings for this fic include canon-typical violence and horror; i'll add some more specific warnings as i post chapters. i also should note that some dialogue in this chapter is borrowed from mag 160, and is absolutely not mine. eternal thanks also to the transcripts for helping me through these scenes.
> 
> you can find me on tumblr @ghostbustermelanieking!

Martin wakes slowly at first. 

Only at first—it doesn't take long to figure out that something is wrong. The bed is too warm, for one thing; Martin can't remember a morning in his life when he's woken up this warm. (His sheets are always cold, and no amount of piled up comforters really help.) And he's certain of this: the cot inside of the storage room isn't warm, not at all. He can hear an odd sort of howling on the other side of the window, which isn't right, because there's no windows in the storage room. He's never heard a sound like that in the Archives, or even at home. He's never heard a sound like that in his life. 

Then Martin feels something moving on the other side of the mattress and his eyes fly open. There _definitely_ shouldn't be anyone in the bed with him. 

Martin fumbles for his glasses, feeling a sick jolt of relief in his stomach when he finds them where they should be, on the bedside table. (Except he doesn't have a bedside table in the storage room, he leaves his glasses on a pile of books.) It takes a moment to recognize the person in the bed across from him, lying with his face half in the pillow, but it comes to Martin all of a sudden. 

It's _Jon_ . Jonathan Sims, his fucking boss, asleep in a bed that is not his under a comforter Martin doesn't recognize. Jon looks almost unrecognizable, too, face and arms peppered with small round scars Martin's sure he never had before, and about a dozen other unfamiliar scars: a faded line across his throat, an awful looking burn on his right hand. He looks like he's been through hell. Maybe Martin's crazy, but he _swears_ Jon's hair is longer than it was last night. (He can see it now, a Jon who looks nothing like this sitting at his desk and Martin poking his head in to say an awkward good night. The image feels like a dream in Martin's head now.)

"Jon?" he says in a strangled voice, and he recoils at the sound of his own voice. It sounds deeper, almost solemn, almost… sad. "Jon, where… where the hell _are_ we?" Martin sits up in the bed, casting his eyes around the room; his first thought is that it's a hotel room or something, but that isn't right, it doesn't _look_ like a hotel room. Too homey, and past the bed is an open door where Martin can see some sort of a hallway. There's three windows in the room, windows with cheery sorts of curtains, and when Martin looks a little closer, he sees that the edges of the curtains have been taped down, along the sides against the wall, and the windowsill, and even down the middle, making them impossible to open easily. He has sudden flashes to being trapped in his flat, sealing every window and crack meticulously over hours where his hands just wouldn't stop shaking. 

" _Martin?_ " There's Jon's voice, incredulous and a little different, too—quieter, with the same sort of strange sadness Martin had heard in his own voice. But still with that prickly sternness Martin's learned to associate with Jon. Martin looks back down and finds Jon staring at him with the same sort of confusion he's feeling. Ah, so he guesses Jon can't explain either. 

"What the _hell_ is going on?" Jon says, dumbfounded and irritable. "What are you _doing_ here? Wh-where _are_ we?" He lifts a hand as if to rub his forehead and gets stuck midway up. It's the scarred hand, the one that looks like it's been burned. Jon stares at it like he's never seen it before. 

"I don't know," Martin admits quietly, looking down at his lap. "I-I was hoping you could tell me."

Jon stumbles out of bed, eyes wide, yanking away from his hand like it really is burning. He turns around in the room, like he's taking it in, eyes swiping over the walls and floors. Martin crumples the comforter between his hands. "I don't… I've _never_ seen this before," Jon says, choked. "I don't… we were in the _Archives_ , we… you went to sleep in the other room. I was in my office. I fell asleep at my desk. H-how did we…" 

"I don't know," Martin says again. His nails are chewed to the quick, which isn't unusual; his quitting nail biting had gone out the window with Prentiss. But his hands are more callused than they've ever been in his life, even when he was working two jobs to support his mum. There's a scar on his thumb he doesn't recognize at all. He's got a hair tie around one wrist that isn't his; his hair's a little longer than usual but still not long enough to put up.

He stumbles out of bed and turns towards a mirror on the wall, and he doesn't recognize his face. Well, it's _him_ , that's for sure, but his face is… wrong. He doesn't know how to explain it. How the hell have they both ended up in a room, in a bed they don't recognize ( _together_ somehow, Jesus Christ), both of them looking horribly different than they did the day before? It doesn't make sense. Martin puts his hand to his face for a minute, presses his fingers too hard to his eyes, like that's going to make it go away.

"You don't know," Jon says, and it almost sounds like a belittlement at first before he says, "You don't know?" and Martin realizes it is a question. He pulls his hand down and shakes his head, unsure of what else to say. He wonders, for a moment, if Tim and Sasha are here, too. If they've all been beamed here through no clear reasoning, one of those odd stories they file away in boxes and commit to ancient tape recorders. He wonders, absurdly, if they should make a statement. 

"This is… ridiculous," Jon says hollowly, and when Martin looks up, he is staring at the taped-over windows. "Are we… has someone _brought_ us here? Why are the windows covered?"

He reaches abruptly for the curtains, and something like panic rises in Martin's stomach. "Jon, don't," he says on instinct, unable to see anything but small, wriggling worms. The ones he's started to see in the entryways to the Institute, outside on the sidewalk. He'll let them in. "We don't know what…"

"Someone clearly doesn't want us to see what's outside, and I have _no_ intention of not looking," Jon says, matter-of-factly enough that Martin can almost ignore the clear panic in _Jon's_ voice. "Looking outside could tell us where we are, o-or at least give us some sort of idea."

"I don't think that's a good idea," Martin tries, but Jon isn't listening. He grabs the curtain with both hands and tugs and tugs, until the tape rips free and the glass beneath is exposed. 

Something twists in the pit of Martin's chest and he gasps, takes three stumbling steps backwards until he hits the bed. Jon is frozen at the window, staring with huge eyes, one hand pressed over his mouth. It seems like something to scream at, but neither of them have screamed. 

Martin hasn't gotten a good look outside, but it's bad. He can _tell_ it's bad. All he can see is the sky, which is not the color it should be. And it's looking at them. There is an eye, in the sky, and it is looking at them. If eyes can have emotion, Martin would say it's smug. That it is leering at them. 

"Put it back," he says, and he's got both hands over his own mouth now. "Put it back, put it _back_ …" He doesn't stop saying it, doesn't stop quivering in place until Jon's pressed the curtains back over the windows again. 

\---

They don't go outside. Neither of them want to go outside after that. 

Once the shock wears off, the two of them sitting in the bedroom in a stunned silence for what feels like hours, Jon suggests they explore the building they're in. "Just to, er… know where we are," he says quietly. "We can't… we can't just stay in here forever."

Martin wants to disagree, wants to argue that they can, in fact, stay here for as long as they want. It seems safer than outdoors, or whatever else is in the house, whatever might have brought then here. But he knows Jon's right this time. They've got to know what's waiting for them. Got to try and figure out why they're here in the first place. "W-we should look for Tim and Sasha," he says, standing from his spot sitting on the floor. "If they're… see if they're all right. D-do you think they would have been brought here, too?"

Worry flashes briefly through Jon's eyes before he composes his expression. "I… I couldn't say. They'd left for the night, last I remember." 

If they're not in here, then they must be out there, in _that_ . Martin can't vocalize it, and so he doesn't, but it's what he's thinking. Unless maybe this isn't happening everywhere, unless maybe this is just happening _here_ , and everywhere else is just fine. (He hopes it isn't like this everywhere. Hopes it's just him and Jon with the worst luck in the world. Maybe they're stuck somewhere and now, after everything with Prentiss, Sasha and Tim will come looking for them. After Prentiss, they both swore up and down they'd come looking if anything like that ever happened again.) He stops the thought in its tracks and follows Jon out of the room. 

There's nothing bad waiting for them downstairs. Nothing at all beyond closed-over windows and doors. They're in a house, just a normal house—a small, comfortable-looking house, the sort Martin would picture himself in someday when he… retired, or something like that. He doesn't know. Upstairs is just a bedroom and a bathroom; downstairs, a kitchen and a couple of sitting rooms and another bathroom. A breakfast table near a bay window that might be nice if it weren't for the cardboard taped over it. There's a jumble of tapes in a battered shoebox on the coffee table, a pile of crumpled, ashy paper in the fireplace. More paper in with the tapes—statements. Jon kneels in front of the statements and touches one, tentatively, with the tips of his fingers. 

He looks lost, worried and confused and lost. He looks like he might need a moment alone. So Martin goes back into the kitchen. He's freezing now that they've left the bedroom, shivering in the chilly house; by the back door is a coat rack with a jumper slung over one hook—one of _his_ jumpers, Martin realizes, even though it should be folded up at the bottom of his suitcase right now, under his cot. He pulls it on and tries not to question it too much. 

There's things on the fridge, held there by Scotch tape and magnets, and Martin goes to look at it, wondering if it might offer any clues as to who lives here, who brought them here. But, confusingly enough, the only clues the fridge offers are ones that lead back to _him,_ him or Jon. Like it's _them_ who live here, which is absurd. There's a few photos, not many, but one or both of them are in all of the photos. They're all Polaroids except for one; Martin notices that and is only a little surprised because he's always liked Polaroids, he bought himself a camera at his last birthday. The only ones he recognizes, though, are photos _from_ his birthday earlier this year: himself and Jon and Tim and Sasha crammed into booths and holding ice cream. He remembers those photos being taken.

Beyond that, there's the one non-Polaroid, a photo of a younger-looking Jon with a woman Martin doesn't recognize and a fluffy cat sitting on the both of them. And then there are several newer photos of Martin and Jon _together_. In situations Martin definitely doesn't remember. Most are around the house, or out in what must be the yard, but one is a sideways selfie in front of the sign for Edinburgh. Martin's never been to Edinburgh in his life. 

They both look happy, in all the photos. They're both laughing in some. In one or two, Martin's got his _arm_ around Jon, like they're really friends. They've never done anything like that; Jon's been more civil since the Prentiss stuff, and has generally been nice enough to Martin when they're not discussing work or chasing a dog down, but they're still not really _friends_. He clearly prefers Tim and Sasha, who are probably the only reason all four of them ever hang out. Martin stares and stares at the photos and they still don't make any sense. He notices that in all the photos of just the two of them, they've got all the scars that shouldn't be there, the longer hair and the generally unfamiliar look about them. 

Martin pokes his face in a photo with one finger. It's another lopsided selfie, him and Jon sitting on the floor of that living room with their backs against the couch, his head on Jon's shoulder. Jon's face is mostly obscured by an outstretched arm, holding the camera, but he seems to be turned towards Martin. Martin's grinning into the camera. He doesn't recognize his own face. He can't remember the last time he looked that happy. 

There's not much else on the fridge in the way of clues. There's a scrap of paper with _Basira_ and a phone number scribbled on it. (No idea who that is.) And there's a mini calendar there, the ones with the cute little drawings Martin's always liked, pinned down with a magnet of the Loch Ness Monster. 

That makes sense, Martin thinks. Martin keeps calendars, writes down birthdays and holidays and visits to Mum to keep track. The calendar itself makes sense. But it's turned to the wrong month. It's on October, and it's really April. It's April, not October, April 2016… 

Martin gets a closer look at the calendar, and his breath catches in his throat. He's gotten a look at the year, and it's wrong, it's _all_ wrong. 2018. October, 2018. Right there, in Martin's own handwriting, on a Saturday, he's written things on little dates that Martin can't read, because he can't take his eyes off the year. 2018. 2018. They look differently. They have scars they don't recognize. Their hair is longer. _2018._

Martin seizes the calendar off the fridge and goes back into the living room. Jon's still at the coffee table, poking through the tapes piled there, but he looks up when Martin comes back in and says, "Martin, where…" with a familiar bite in his voice.

Martin ignores him, stops him mid-sentence to say, "Jon, what have you heard about time travel?"

Jon's mouth hangs open in astonishment for a moment before he stammers out, "I-I'm sorry, what?" 

" _Time travel_ ," Martin says tiredly, trying to keep exasperation from leaking into his voice. "Y'know. Getting beamed into the… t-the past, or the future or whatever?" He waves a hand as if to demonstrate.

Jon stares at him for a moment before his face twists in disbelief. "This isn't your idea of a prank, is it, Martin?"

"Jesus _Christ,_ Jon," Martin snaps, and he thrusts the calendar abruptly at him. “How do you explain _this_?” 

Jon’s eyes widen when he sees it, the year written in the big block letters at the top. He flips through the months in a frantic sort of way. “They don’t…” he mutters under his breath. “They don’t make the calendars this far in advance, do they?”

Martin sinks into the couch, one hand over his face. “Come _on_ , Jon. Face facts,” he says into his palm. “We wake up here together, we have no idea how we got here or where we are, we both look very different than we did yesterday, and there’s a calendar for _2018_ on the refrigerator… how _else_ would you explain this?”

Jon struggles for words for a moment, mouth still hanging open. "... Group hallucination," he says. "Bizarre prank. We've been abducted, and this i-is some sort of a trick…"

"What sort of _prank_ would this be?" Martin presses, irritably. "What abduction would involve _changing the sky?_ "

"Oh, and time traveling forward into some sort of strange place with an eye in the sky is the more likely option?" Jon snaps. 

"It makes more sense than anything else. It's about on par with all the other spooky things we've encountered on the job. Although you don't believe half of those, don't know why you'd believe this, either." Martin feels bad as soon as he says it; Jon did believe him about Prentiss, after all. And this is a little more far-fetched than Worm Woman Traps Him In His Own Apartment. But it feels so obvious now that he's seen the calendar; he doesn't understand how Jon can't see it. Doesn't understand what else it could be. 

He grits his teeth. Twists the hair tie that is not his around his wrist and looks up at Jon, who still looks desperately confused. Staring at his own hands like he's never seen them before. And he hasn't, Martin doesn't think; there's no real explanation for the pockmark scars and the burn scar twisted across one appearing overnight. Jon _hasn't seen them_ because they can't be from here.

On the table, there are several tape recorders. Martin doesn’t really notice it at first—he’s got one in addition to Jon’s after all, even though there’s never really that many lying around. So he’s not looking, not really. But he looks when he hears the familiar crackle of one turning on. And a familiar voice coming from it. His _own_ voice, saying, _Everything all right?_ and Jon’s voice responding. A conversation they’ve never had before. 

“Did you—did you turn that on?” he says in a shaking voice, looking over at Jon. 

Jon shakes his head, staring at the recorder, listening to the conversation the versions of them on the tape are having about unpacking and a safe house. Martin listens, too, twisting the hair tie too tight. He barely recognizes the sound of his own voice, and not in that way where you sound weird on tape. In the way where his own voice sounded weird in the bedroom up there. He sounds… different. Hollower, yes, but also happy. Happy here, wherever this is, with Jon. It’s strange. He supposes that they came here of their own free will, then. Because they wanted to. Together. 

“W-we haven’t had this conversation,” Jon says, voice croaking, and Martin has to shut his eyes for a moment because the Jon sitting next to him sounds so different from the one on the tape. “I’ve never said this in my life. Wh-who is _Daisy?_ Do you know…”

“ _No_ ,” Martin says insistently. “I don’t—don’t know a Daisy _yet_ . We haven’t had this conversation _yet_ .” Time travel. Time travel. It _has_ to be. He shoves his glasses up and pushes his face into his hands again. He feels the ridge of an unfamiliar scar above his eye, a small cut that must’ve bled a lot if it scarred like this. He doesn’t have that scar. His hair isn’t this long. This isn’t possible. It isn’t possible but it’s happening. He’s woken up two years in the future with his boss in the middle of somewhere where a giant eye stares at them from the sky.

“This isn’t _possible_ , Martin,” says Jon, angrier now, voicing the arguments that are bouncing around in Martin's head. “That can’t—that can’t be _us_ , this has to be… some sort of trick. Something _pretending…_ ” 

The voice on the tape that sounds like Jon is teasing Martin, sounding strangely fond, and Martin almost can’t take it. He can’t remember the last time anyone talked to him like that. If ever. He presses his palms harder over his eyes. 

There’s a loud thump that must be Jon hitting the button too hard, and the voices cut off. Silence in the room now, outside of the howling wind outside the taped-over windows. It sounds like a voice in pain, almost. 

Martin sags back into the couch, takes his hands away. He doesn’t know what to do here. Who _would_ know what to do in this situation? He’s only now realized that if this is the future— _his_ future—then he has nothing to look forward to. Nothing good in his future. Is his mum all right? Tim or Sasha? Anyone? Is there _anyone_ left besides him and Jon, huddled in this house they don’t know while the world wails outside and the sky stares down at them? 

Jon clears his throat a couple times, looks up at Martin with wide, frantic eyes. Martin's never seen him look this lost. Even after the dickhead-boss persona (Tim's words) is shed, even after that, Jon's never looked like… this. “I don’t… maybe we should try leaving,” he says softly. “If there’s a car…”

“Don’t go outside,” Martin says suddenly. “It’s not… it’s not safe, don’t… don’t go outside.” He isn’t sure how he knows this, but he knows it all the same. 

Jon takes a shaky breath. Pushes the tapes aside and presses his palms into the top of the coffee table. “All right,” he says. “All right, all right.”

\---

Martin shows him the fridge. All the things on it. Jon doesn’t recognize any of the photos on it, except for the birthday photos, of course, and the one of him and the woman and the cat—“That’s Georgie,” he says, sounding confused. “My—ex girlfriend. And her cat. The Admiral.” He touches the photo tentatively before yanking his fingers back. “I… remember this photo being taken, but… I don’t understand. Georgie and I haven’t talked in years.” He doesn't know who Basira is. He doesn't recognize any of the photos of himself and Martin. Martin watches to see if he has any real reaction to the ones where they've got their arms around each other, but Jon doesn't say anything about it. He just looks confused, which is pretty par for the course for the past hour or so. (Hour? Hours? Martin isn't sure. There's a clock on the wall but it hasn't moved at all since the last time he checked.)

Jon finds a cell phone—an old flip phone, burner phone it looks like—upstairs in the bedroom, but the clock is broken there, too. They watch it for five minutes without it changing: 3:55 p.m. Afternoon. The date is pretty much confirmed, though, or at least the date it was before the clocks broke. October 18, 2018. 

Martin thinks Jon might start believing after that. Well, he mutters, "This phone is clearly broken," and starts poking at it, but Martin can tell something has shifted. Either way, he doesn't press the issue. 

There's a trunk at the foot of the bed, and a tiny dresser, and digging through them reveals their own clothes. _Their_ clothes. Quite a few articles neither of them recognize, but several more that they do, and that just seems to pile onto the idea that they did come here of their own will. Martin finds books he knows he would bring if he was leaving home for a while—books he's got piled up beside his cot (or had, he guesses). He even finds notebooks, just sitting out on the dresser, full of his own handwriting. No mistaking that. Martin would've brought those if he came here himself. (He doubts any kidnapper would be nice enough to go, _Oh, all right, pack up your notebooks so you can write poetry while you're kidnapped._ )

He's thinking about the future version of him when he's considering this, the idea that he came here of his own will. (With Jon. For some reason.) Future Martin. Or Present Martin, he guesses, if he's _in_ the future right now. He's never really pictured time travel like this, like a bastardized form of body hopping. He's seen _Back to the Future;_ he always thought it would be something more like that, if he thought about it at all. But he's never liked sci-fi much in the first place. 

How the hell did he end up here? (The him of 2016, not the him who came to the house and packed up all his notebooks.) Martin doesn't understand how this has happened. He wonders if they have any statements back in the Archives. He wonders if he'll _ever_ see the Archives again. (Or his flat, or his mum…) 

Jon goes back downstairs after a bit, bristling and quiet, so Martin takes the notebooks and sits on the bed to read through them. They're mostly empty, aside from the old green one of poems he wrote a couple of years ago that he really likes. He can't find the blue notebook he keeps tucked under his pillow in the storage room. There's one with a grey cover with a little bit written in it, all the depressing kind of stuff he used to write when his mom got bad. And then nothing. And then a small entry that Martin thinks is prose-poetry until he actually reads it and realizes it's something like a journal entry. _Jon got me out. He came for me. We left for Scotland yesterday. Basira says it isn't safe for Jon in London anymore and I didn't want him to go alone. She gave us the key to Daisy's safe house. We took the train. I fell asleep on his shoulder. He said he didn't mind. He said he wouldn't leave me again. I know he won't. I won't leave him either._

Martin has to close the notebook after that and rest his head against the wall. He didn't think—he didn't think Jon even _liked_ him. Yes, they've been friendly enough before, especially with Tim and Sasha as a buffer, and yes, he's reconsidered a bit after he gave his statement, but he still—he didn't think they'd ever be _friends_ , not like this. That Jon would ever… 

He pulls his glasses off and rubs at his eyes. Where are Sasha and Tim? Why would they leave them behind if it wasn't safe? They're Jon's friends, too, they care about him—why wouldn't they come? What about this Georgie person? What about his mum? Devon is nowhere _near_ Scotland, so he can't be visiting from here. What happened to them when the world went wrong—when whatever happened happened? They couldn't have come when the world was like this, could they? Leave everyone behind? Or is it not like this everywhere? Have they stumbled into their own personal hellscape where the sky watches them? Are they even still in Scotland? What does he do now?

Martin wipes his eyes and takes several deep breaths and pushes the notebooks into a drawer with his jumpers. Then he goes downstairs. There's familiar voices echoing from the living room—Jon's and Tim's and Sasha's—and Martin finds Jon listening to a tape in the living room, staring down at the player with one hand resting on it, a look almost like reverence on his face. After a moment, Martin recognizes the tape: the one from Jon's birthday, when Tim hadn't mentioned he was recording. It feels like such a long time ago, that they were able to interact this easy, before Martin got trapped in his apartment by worms, and Sasha let herself get stabbed in the shoulder in an attempt to save them all… 

"I remember that day," Martin says, too quietly. 

Jon's head shoots up like he hadn't heard Martin come in, clear surprise on his face, but when he sees it's just Martin, he looks almost relieved. "I… yes. I do, too," he says, just as quietly. He hits a button on the recorder and the voices stop. "That… was a good day," he adds in a faltering voice. (It was. Martin remembers that, too. They were happy. Jon smiled, and loosened up enough to joke around some with them, and it felt like a miracle.)

He sits on the end of the couch, on the opposite end of Jon, and looks down at his hands again. It feels strange to look directly at him, after what he found in the notebooks upstairs. "Anything… anything else in those tapes?" he asks Jon. "Anything useful?"

"I haven't listened to any but this one, yet," Jon says. "They aren't labeled, so it's hard to sift through it all. I wanted to check through it all. I—I should have moved on from this one, really. We know how it ends." He shoots the tape a strange look Martin can't decipher. (If he had to guess, he'd assume Jon misses Tim and Sasha, too, even though they saw them just yesterday. Martin knows he misses them, too, misses the lightness Tim brings to the room and Sasha's cool investigative manner and the easygoing banter. They might be less of a mess if Tim and Sasha were here. Although Sasha would've probably made them go outside.)

Martin decides to change the subject, just to rid himself of the twisting knot in the pit of his stomach. "Nothing much in the bedroom," he says. "More of my things, so I guess I really _did_ choose to come here. Probably wouldn't have… packed a bag if I'd been kidnapped or something." Going for a laugh, he supposes; he adds a nervous little chuckle at the end, for effect.

"You did choose. We both did," Jon says in an odd sort of voice. "It was in the notebook. We came to Scotland to get away from the police and Trevor and Julia, and to hide from Elias, although you see how well that worked out."

The words make Martin jolt, press a hand over his mouth in surprise. Jon had been there when he found the notebooks, but he hadn't really _noticed,_ had barely even looked at Martin when it happened, and Martin hadn't _read_ any of it to him. And Scotland was in the notebook, but the _police_? And who the hell are Trevor and Julia? "I don't—how do you—how did you know that?" he says faintly. 

Jon's face shifts abruptly, from a sort of dreamier look to stunned confusion. "I… I-I don't know," he says. "That was… that… what _was_ that?" 

"You weren't up there when I read through the notebooks," says Martin. "And I didn't tell you about Scotland, I-I didn't tell you about the train… how did you _know_? W-were you spying on me?" The ridiculousness of the situation suddenly crashes down on him; he is sitting two years in the future in a house in Scotland, in a wrong version of the world, talking with his boss about whether or not he was watching Martin reading his diary entry about running away with his boss who saved him. 

" _No,_ " Jon says insistently. "Don't be ridiculous, Martin. I was down here the entire time.”

"Then _how_ did you…"

"I don't… I don't _know._ I don't know how I knew this. It was… it was just there. I didn't _look_ for it." Jon presses his fingers to his forehead like he's got a headache. 

Martin rests his head against the back of the couch tiredly. "Right." Time travel and eyes in the sky and him and Jon in a house together in Scotland—Jon knowing things that Martin never told him might not be the weirdest thing that's happened today. 

"Martin, I don't know—I don't understand how that happened," Jon says, hoarsely. "I _don't._ It doesn't… it doesn't make _sense_."

"Right," Martin says again, rubbing at his eyes. He doesn't know what else to say. 

"You have to believe me, Martin, I don't understand—"

"No—I do, Jon, I do. It's fine. Just—forget it." Martin scrubs at the air with his hands. He doesn't want to talk about this anymore. Doesn't want to think anymore about what was written in those notebooks. "Why don't—why don't we listen to more of those tapes?" he offers instead, just to change the subject. Tries to form his voice into something gentle and encouraging. "See what we can figure out, yeah?"

Jon sighs, pushing his hands into his hair. "Yes. All right, yes. That… sounds productive." 

He switches out Tim's tape from the birthday with another unlabeled one. Martin leans back into the couch, eyes half-closed as Tim and Sasha's voices rise out of the player. It sounds like a recording of them looking for something for Jon; it must be from months ago. (Years ago, now.) The sound of their voices are strangely comforting. It feels strange to be here, going through tapes with Jon, without them; it's almost like work except weirder, and it feels like they should be here, too. 

Martin would've expected these tapes to have more horrible things on it, but this isn't horrible at all. And neither was the last one. He wonders if all of this is just gentle nostalgia type things. He wonders where Tim and Sasha (and maybe even Elias) are now. He wonders if they'll see them soon. He listens to Tim and Sasha banter about stapling and other things until he can't keep his eyes open any longer. 

\---

Martin goes to sleep on the couch and wakes up again in the storage room. But it isn't really like being awake; it's got this odd sort of feeling to it, like he's on the outside looking in—an out of body experience, isn't that what they call it? And when he rolls over and rubs his eyes and yawns, it doesn't feel like it is Martin doing that. Like it's him pulling the strings. It feels like he's just along for the ride. "Jon?" he says, and it isn't him saying it at all. And that's when Martin realizes he must be dreaming. 

" _Jon?_ " the dream-him says, more urgently now, reaching across the tiny mattress. "Jon, _where_ —" He pushes the covers and sits up, stares around the room like he's never seen it before, like he's reenacting waking up in the strange bedroom. (Martin starts to wonder if this has all been a dream, the house, the sky, this. A hallucination, like Jon said. But that felt… real. This doesn't feel real.) 

" _Jon,_ " the him in the dream says, his voice breaking, and Martin is thrown by this. Then he's shaking his head, nearly tearful, saying, "This isn't—this is just like them, isn't it, coming up with something else to torture me with. _Goddamnit_." 

And then he isn't saying anything at all, because there's a knock on the door, and Tim's voice, and Martin knows this is Tim bringing in coffee like he's been doing the whole time Martin's lived in the Archives. Sasha's voice, too, calling good morning, and asking if he's awake, and the dream-Martin tenses all over, which doesn't make sense because it's just Tim and Sasha. His friends. 

Tim opens the door, and Martin feels himself inhale sharply, feels the burn of tears in his eyes as Tim and Sasha poke their heads in, which doesn't make sense. Sasha says, "You awake yet? Tim got some pastries—think we're going to pull Jon out of his office and into the break room." Tim says, "Team bonding, ehh?" and winks.

The dream-Martin wants to say, _Jon's here?_ and _You're alive?_ and _It's so good to see you both,_ and more things like that which don't make sense. But that isn't what Martin says. He says what _he_ wants to say, his voice shaking as tears that shouldn't be there slide down his cheeks—he says, "Tim? Sasha?" Further in the Archives, he can hear the frantic, unfamiliar rising sound of Jon calling his name. _Martin? Martin, where are you?_ Martin says, "Have you—have you ever been to Scotland?"

Martin wakes up then, on the couch in the house he does not know, and he feels habitual despair rising in his throat. So it's _not_ over. He hears Jon's voice again, rising in some dark and pained emotion, and he's about to ask what's wrong when he hears the crackle of a tape underneath the words and realizes: Jon is listening to another one of the tapes. 

The tape sounds… wrong. That's the only way to describe it. Something off about Jon's voice, and not in the he-sounds-different-because-he's-older type way. The Jon on tape talks like he's someone else, which makes no sense, but it's true. And he's saying weird things, almost shouting, and the words seem almost… powerful. Meaningful. He doesn't know. Martin finds himself wanting to turn the tape off, but when he tries to move to at least pause it, to ask the Jon sitting in front of him what's going on, he can't. Can't lift his head or his arms from the couch. 

Jon's still sitting across from him on the couch, and he's not moving, either. He's got both hands over his mouth. There's a weird shimmer on his cheeks, and when Martin looks a little closer, he realizes that it's tears. Jon is crying. 

The Jon on tape is still talking, and it still doesn't sound like him, like any Jon Martin knows. _Come to us in your wholeness. Come to us in your perfection,_ he's saying, and Martin is shivering like he'll never get warm. _Bring all that is fear and all that is terror and all that is the awful dread that crawls and chokes and blinds and falls and twists and leaves and hides and weaves and burns and hunts and rips and leads and dies,_ and beside him on the couch, Jon makes a punched-out sound of pain. Or fear. 

_Come to us,_ the Jon on tape says. _I OPEN THE DOOR._

Martin shuts his eyes, as if on instinct. On the tape, he can hear loud sounds, garbled static, things that shouldn't be there, and he thinks he knows what happened to the world. Beside him on the couch, Jon is crying more audibly now, muffled by his hands. Martin works his throat and forces words out—he says, "Jon," but Jon doesn't seem to be listening. 

On the tape, he hears his own voice now, a panicked version of the unrecognizable voice coming out of his own throat. The voice of the future him and not the version that he is, the version in his dream. The future-past him on the tape is telling Jon to wake up, is slapping him awake. He's telling the Jon on tape that it's all gone wrong. 

Martin shudders, forces his eyes open. "Jon," he says, louder this time. He tries to move his hands and finds that he can; he fumbles for the tape player and hits the button clumsily. It hits the floor with a thunk; the voices stop. It's silent here except for their breathing and the muffled sounds of Jon holding back sobs. 

Martin rubs at his face and sits up. It takes effort, his muscles aching in protest, his movements sluggish. He doesn't know why he was— _trapped,_ or paralyzed, or whatever, he's never had sleep paralysis in his life. "Jon?" he says again, and he's reaching out, his hand is coming down on Jon's shoulder. 

Jon shudders a little, and Martin yanks his hand away like he's been burned. "Martin," he says into his hands, with a bitter little laugh, "I think we've figured out what's happened here." 

Martin looks between the tape and Jon, at Jon huddled into place on the couch. He's never seen him like this before—but then again, he doesn't know Jon very well, does he. "I don't—understand," he says. 

"You heard, didn't you?" Jon says. He pulls his hands away from his face, and for the first time, Martin notices faint white lines on Jon's cheeks. Light, barely-there scars that look almost like scratch marks. " _I_ did this. It was me."

"That doesn't make sense," says Martin, even though he just heard the tape. It felt odd, wrong, everything like that. "You wouldn't—you wouldn't _do_ that. You wouldn't!"

"But I did," Jon says, voice thick with disgust. "You _just_ heard it, Martin. This is what's happened. We've been thrown into a future where two years from now, I end the fucking _world_."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so here is chapter 2 of this fic. thank you to everyone who read and commented on the last chapter, i really appreciate it. chapter 3 should be up by wednesday by my count! and if you haven't already, you should absolutely check out the excellent, excellent art by @bisexualoftheblade, @eternallysadaboutjontim, @corvidtowers, and   
> @chromaticmelody on tumblr/in the previous and future chapters. you can also find me on tumblr @ghostbustermelanieking.
> 
> warning up front for some depictions of grief towards the end of this chapter, and some canon-typical guilt stuff. there's some more quotes from mag 160 in this chapter, as well as some references to the first few episodes of season 5 (mag 161, 162, 163, 164, etc).

Martin listens to the tape. After Jon storms out in some muted frenzy of either legitimate anger or grief, Martin picks up the tape and listens to the whole thing, beginning to end. Things honestly make much more sense after that—in terms of Jon "ending the world," not in terms of… the whole of it. That's still confusing, but Martin's left reassured by the fact that Jon didn't purposefully end the world. (He  _ knew _ Jon couldn't have. His boss may be something of a prick, but he's not  _ evil _ .)

The rest of it is confusing—apparently it is the statement of Jonah Magnus, who Martin thought was  _ dead, _ and who is apparently possessing Jon to speak through him? He talks (through Jon) like he was  _ in  _ the Archives, watching Jon the whole time—he talks about watching Jane Prentiss attacking, which hasn't happened yet, but the reference to it immediately makes Martin flinch. (Thinking about what that will be like when it happens. If it happens.) He talks about a lot of other things that haven't happened, too, about people Martin doesn't know named Jude and Detective Tonner and Peter and Melanie—Melanie like Melanie King, the YouTuber who just gave a statement? She hit it off with Sasha, sure, but Jonah Magnus talking through Jon says something about  _ slaughter _ and someone named Melanie, which makes no sense. He talks a lot about Gertrude Robinson, too, things Martin's never heard before, even through all the rumors that float around the Institute. 

It's honestly a bit hard to process, and Martin mostly listens with his head on his arms, swimming in all this mess, until the possessed Jon on tape says  _ his _ name. Something about making a wager and final marks and escaping. And then he says,  _ How _ is _ Martin, by the way? He looks well. You will keep an eye on him when all this is over, won’t you? He’s earned  _ that _. _ And for reasons Martin is unaware of, he's shivering all over; he has to pause the tape for a few moments and sit there in the silence (broken by the wailing of the world outside) until he's ready to hear the end, the words of whoever is speaking through Jon echoing chillingly in his mind. 

The parts Martin ends up lingering over the most isn't the—statement of Jonah Magnus bits. It probably  _ should _ be, but it isn't. It's the parts at the beginning and the end with him and real, not-possessed Jon. Well,  _ future _ him and not-possessed Jon, anyways. Part of it he's already heard: it's the discussion about unpacking what they heard when the tape had turned on before. Then another discussion about insane-sounding things: police, bodies, tunnels, statements, eating your greens. Cows. Good cows, apparently. Apparently Martin's the one talking to this Basira person. Apparently he went on a walk while Jon read this statement and that's why he wasn't there. He doesn't remember any of this. He doesn't understand it at all. 

The end part—when Martin comes home after the apocalypse—is harder to listen to, and Martin has to stop the tape again. He's heard the important bits anyways, he thinks. The parts where Jon was forced to end the world, and the parts that explain why. No need to listen much further. 

He gets up, pushes the tapes aside and walks around the bottom floor of the house. Doesn't look at the photos on the fridge or anything like that. He goes through the kitchen cabinets, even though he's miles away from hungry. There's enough food, frozen meals in the freezer and cans of stuff in the cabinet. Things he buys for himself when he actually has the chance to go grocery shopping and the wherewithal to cook (not a luxury included in living in the Archives). No tea; why wouldn't there be tea? He's been making Jon tea for months, why would that stop when they're  _ living in the same house? _

Martin goes upstairs and finds Jon sitting on the bed, glaring down at a pile of papers. It's not an entirely unfamiliar expression, although it's fiercer than Martin's ever seen it. It's deserved, though, the anger; Martin heard the tape. He's seen the scars, too. He can't imagine what this future version of Jon has been through—what it must feel like for  _ his _ version of Jon to wake up in a body that has been through all this. 

Jon doesn't look up when Martin enters. He shuffles the papers in his lap in a hurried sort of way. "More statements here," he says, bitterness in his voice. "Statement of Jonah Magnus. Other ones. Haven't read any of them yet."

Martin swallows hard. Thinks about going over and touching Jon's shoulder, some attempt at comfort, but ultimately he stays where he is. Jon probably wouldn't want his comfort in the first place. "It wasn't your fault, Jon," he says, despite this, quietly. Because he can't just say  _ nothing,  _ and anyways, it's the truth. It  _ wasn't  _ Jon's fault, any version of Jon. 

Jon doesn't look up when Martin says this. "You heard the tape, then."

"Yes, I listened," says Martin. "Jon—"

"Then you know it very well  _ is _ my fault."

"You were  _ possessed, _ " Martin says, insistent and firm. "Controlled, whatever, b-by Jonah Magnus…"

"Elias," Jon says bluntly. 

Martin stops mid-sentence. "What?"

"Elias is Jonah Magnus," says Jon, matter-of-factly. Like this isn't the strangest possible thing he could say right now. (Okay,  _ one  _ of the strangest possible things, but it's still…)

"Wh—wait,  _ what? _ " Martin says, head reeling. Elias isn't the  _ best  _ boss, sure, he's always given Martin the creeps, but— _ what?  _ "H-h-how the hell is that… how is that  _ possible? _ "

"I don't  _ know.  _ He… changed his name or something like that. He stole other people's bodies. Gertrude didn't say." Jon scrubs at the air furiously with one hand, as if to brush away the specifics. "The details don't  _ matter.  _ All that's important is that, according to a tape that Gertrude Robinson left for me, Elias is Jonah Magnus, and he is  _ not  _ to be trusted."

Martin sways a bit in tired confusion, rubs a hand over his mouth. He has more questions, a lot more, but one look at the stricken, furious panic on Jon's face tells him that this is not the time. He isn't sure  _ what _ to say, sifting through all the insane information he's gotten over the course of the last few hours, so what he settles on is, "Gertrude left you a tape?”

"Apparently. A tape that I  _ clearly _ never got, until it was too late." Jon laughs bitterly, shoving the papers aside. "Apparently I was only chosen as Head Archivist for  _ this,  _ to end the world, and there are  _ fear gods  _ that I apparently serve, and Elias was planning this the whole time—you heard the tape—and I  _ never even knew. _ "

"That doesn't make it your  _ fault,  _ Jon," says Martin—they're the only words within his reach. "You had no idea, you were being controlled, you  _ couldn't stop reading.  _ I heard that. I heard you try! And you couldn't stop."

"I walked into it. I made the decisions that led me there. I made the decision to pick up the paper, I  _ took the job.  _ And apparently I've been doing exactly what Elias wanted this whole time." Jon crumples a statement in his fist, the crackle of paper startling. "You know what else Gertrude said? That she left the Archives in the state that they're in to  _ thwart _ Elias and his plans. His plans to end the world. And I—I have been  _ undoing _ that this entire time. By organizing it all." Jon's voice is breaking by this point, and he looks down, away from Martin. "I played along this entire time. I did exactly what he wanted, I went along with it, and then I  _ spoke the words  _ that ended the world. This is…  _ absolutely  _ my fault, Martin. You won't convince me otherwise."

Martin's face cinches with frustration and anger (anger at Jonah Magnus who is also apparently Elias, and what he's done to them, not really at Jon—Jon doesn’t deserve anger, even if it is ridiculous that he thinks this is his fault). He looks down at his shoes. He isn't sure what else he can say, but he is  _ not  _ going to let Jon take the blame for this, not at all. He hears the words of Jonah Magnus filtered through Jon's voice again— _ Until I made a little wager about Martin _ —and he flinches a bit. "On the tape. It said you were… marked, and  _ that _ was why you could end the world," he says softly. "And… it sounded like  _ I  _ marked you. Somehow. That I gave you the last one. That's what it sounded like." 

The words had been vague, something about being lonely and someone named Peter. But his name had been in there, several times. Made it sound like it was  _ his _ fault, as much as any of the others. And, well, Martin wouldn't  _ not  _ describe himself as lonely. At least a lot of the time that seems accurate enough. He scrubs a hand over his face and says, "So it's  _ my  _ fault too, then. If I set you up for that. I helped end the world, too."

"Martin, don't be ridiculous." Jon's voice is sharp, the same tone as a thousand chidings about due diligence and his researching skills. 

Martin shoves at his glasses, maybe a little irritably, because he feels like he's listening to the tapes again, sitting and going through with Sasha and Tim just for review and then Jon had said, voice full of scorn,  _ I don’t count Martin as he’s unlikely to contribute anything but delays.  _ It's ridiculous, they've been shoved into the future during the literal apocalypse that their evil boss forced Jon to kickstart via possession, but, well. Martin's always sort of thought of  _ that _ moment, when Jon's voice gets like this. And the others that came after that. "If it's your fault, then it's my fault, too, Jon. That's all I'm saying," he says, in a voice that's too sharp to be very patient. "My point is that it  _ isn't  _ your fault, or even mine. You were manipulated, you were… possessed."

Jon snorts at that. "What, like that ridiculous Father Burroughs statement?"

"What  _ else _ would you call it? It  _ obviously  _ wasn't you, that's what I'm saying. You didn't ask for any of that. You  _ tried _ to stop reading. I heard."

"I don't want to talk about this, Martin," Jon says abruptly, the bite still in his voice. "What happened happened.  _ Obviously _ there's nothing to do to change it. There's nothing I can do to make it right." He presses his hands hard over his eyes for a moment before looking at Martin again. His expression is indiscernible. "So the next question is," he says, voice stony again, "what are we going to do now that we're stuck here?"

Martin doesn't really know how to answer that one. There's no chairs of any sort in the bedroom, and he doesn't want to sit on the floor (that's never a fun one), so he sits on the furthest corner of the bed. (They  _ were  _ sharing a bed when he woke up, so, uh. Sure.) "Maybe… maybe there's a way to stop this," he says quietly. Thinking absurdly of  _ War of the Worlds,  _ the 2005 version, where all the aliens die at the end and maybe the world would go back to normal and the family could be happy. He remembers being surprised when he saw it because apocalypse movies  _ never _ end that way. Never. "Turn it back. Maybe we  _ can  _ make this right."

"How often does something like that happen, Martin?" There's still a little bit of bite in Jon's voice, but mostly, mostly he just sounds miserable. "I don't see how what I've done could be  _ anything _ but permanent."

"Except it  _ isn't _ ," Martin says, and he's suddenly excited now, he's suddenly thinking of every time travel movie he's ever seen, instead of  _ War of the Worlds _ . The solution is so obvious, it's right in front of them. "Jon, we  _ time traveled  _ here. We're from the  _ past,  _ s-so we can fix this when we get back! We even know how it happens, we have that tape… We just have to find a way back, a-and we can do things differently this time round. Change it so it ends a different way."

Jon's silent for a minute, like he's thinking it over, and for a second Martin hopes that Jon's finally gotten positive about something. Like he's finally given Jon some sort of good idea. But when Jon looks over at him, he just looks sad. "If we  _ can  _ get back," he says quietly. "What if we're stuck here, Martin? What if there  _ is  _ no way back?"

Martin winces. He doesn't want to think about that, stuck forever in an apocalypse with no idea where his mum or Tim or Sasha are. "We… we got  _ here  _ though, somehow," he says. "W-we have to be able to get back… right?"

Jon sighs heavily, pushes at the papers until they're out of his lap and stands. "I don't know, Martin. I don't. I… You'll have to excuse me. I need… I have to go." He crosses the room without looking back at Martin, reaches the door before he looks back. "Gertrude's tape is downstairs, if you'd like to listen to it," he adds stiffly. "I just… I need some time. Please.”

"Jon, I can go back downstairs if you want to—" Martin starts, but Jon is already gone. He closes the door behind him, not too hard. It always seems to close hard in the office, a bit on the side of irritable slamming, but now it closes quietly enough, and then the bedroom is silent again. 

Martin sighs, covering his face with one hand. What to do now. What  _ can  _ he do now? Clearly he won't have any success at convincing Jon this isn't his fault, and there doesn't seem to be anything else  _ to  _ do, aside from sitting here and waiting for something to happen. Find a way to go home, maybe, except how are they going to do that with no resources to study time travel and no real idea of how they got here? They can't leave, not really, and if the phone Jon found is any indication of the situation, he doubts there is Internet. So no way to research. And while Jon's clearly got some spooky powers of some sort, if the possession tape is any indication, Martin seems to have been left with none, so he doubts  _ he's  _ gonna be the one to solve this problem. 

Instead, Martin shuffles through the statements on the bed, but none of them mention anything  _ close _ to time travel. He reads then all anyway, though; it's not like he has anything better to do. And when he's done, he moves onto his notebooks. Reads all the poetry he's written in the years since. He flips through the gray one, past the entry about him and Jon coming to Scotland and on through. Not much poetry. A few things. There's three whole pages of tic-tac-toe games, front and back, with little scribbled notes and doodles in his handwriting and a handwriting he recognizes as Jon's. 

There's a note towards the end, that he wrote, and it takes a few tries for Martin to read all the way through it. It says,  _ Jon — Good morning. Headed down to the village to check the mail and call Basira. I wanted to let you sleep in. I'll have my phone if you need me. I'll bring back breakfast. Try to get some tea too, we're almost out.  _ And then a little scrawled smiley face by his name,  _ Martin,  _ right there in black and white. And then a short little response beside it, scrawled in Jon’s handwriting:  _ You could have waited for me to wake up, you know. Very inconsiderate of you, leaving me to putter around the house by myself when you KNOW I've run out of books. I suppose I'll just have to sit and wait for you to come back. I'll probably be upstairs. And, just so you know, I've made the last of the tea. J. _ And an even smaller smiley face beside that, drawn messily, but definitely drawn by Jon, Martin can tell. 

Martin smudges the pencil marks a little with his thumb; it's still there. It's real. Jon's handwriting makes him think of the disapproving notes Jon used to leave all over his reports, but this is not disapproving edits. He didn't think Jon would like  _ anything _ like that, smiley faces and sweet little notes about sleeping in, and  _ tea _ . They must… they must be pretty close friends. 

Martin switches to his old notebook, the green one from before his mum moved out. He really likes those poems. He's a little relieved he still has this; he thought it might have been destroyed when he left his flat, running from Prentiss; he hasn't been back to his flat, she could've destroyed it all. But here's his old notebook, safe and sound in the future. He feels a pang of relief and gratefulness, to know that it survived. One thing he’s got left through all of this.

Martin lies on the bed and reads his old poems until his eyes go fuzzy with tiredness. He doesn't know how he keeps falling asleep here; it's like there's something forcing him into a state of permanent sleepiness. Or maybe he's lost track of time, maybe time's all wrong here and it's been hours and hours since he last slept. 

He's too tired to dissect it. He curls up in the hollow in the mattress where he woke up earlier, notebook clutched in one hand, still able to hear the sounds of Jon moving around downstairs, very faintly. The floorboards must be thin. Still, it's strangely comforting to know that Jon is there. He never falls asleep to the sound of another person, not since Mum left, and he—he misses that. The soothing knowledge that the house isn't empty and he isn't alone.

Martin falls asleep abruptly, the spiral edge of the notebook bearing into his cheek. The world is still howling outside, but if Martin concentrates hard enough, he can barely even hear it anymore. 

\---

Martin dreams. He dreams he's walking on a foggy beach, up and down and up and down, and the sand has no color, and he can't find the shoreline or the edge of the sand. And he's alone. He can feel it in the pit of his chest, the deep strain of being alone. He dreams he's in a storage room, lit match and wads of paper in hand, and someone is pounding on the door and shouting at him like it is Prentiss all over again. He dreams he's in a hospital room, holding someone's hand. The hand is cold between his, and he can feel tears building behind his eyes, and his first thought is,  _ Mum,  _ but this isn't Mum's hand. There's scars on the back of it, calluses on the fingers, and it's so cold, and Martin's holding onto it like it's the most precious thing in the world. 

He dreams he's standing in a graveyard in his best suit, hands knotted together so tight his knuckles are white. He dreams he is sitting at a desk he's never seen before, staring down at the corkscrew he sleeps with at night and thinking,  _ Do it, just do it, find Jon and do it, imagine how things could  _ be _ if you weren't such a fucking coward, if you could bring up the damned nerve to  _ leave _.  _ He dreams he is wandering a strangely colored hallway with Tim, and the walls and floor are spinning like a funhouse, and Tim is shouting nonsense at a tape recorder. He dreams he is sleeping on a train, his head on Jon's shoulder. He dreams he is sitting against a wall in a storage room with Jon and Jon's leg is bleeding. He dreams he is running through a hellscape, pushing his way up a path towards a gate in a house, thinking,  _ Have to go, have to run, have to get back and then I'll be safe, we'll be safe then, I'll be okay if I can just, and I have to see if he's all right…  _

He dreams he's in the storage room again, like the dream before, and Sasha and Tim are there. He dreams of a Jon who looks like his Jon—the Jon from 2016, that is—pushing into the storage room and hugging Martin so tight his ribs hurt. Whispering,  _ I thought I lost you,  _ and  _ How did we get here, how did this happen?  _ into his neck. And in the dream, Martin is hugging him back, pressing his nose to the top of Jon's head. And then Jon is hugging Tim and Sasha in the same way, who look like they have no idea what's going on. Saying how good it is to see them. It doesn't make any sense. Martin wonders in an absent sort of way why they haven't seen Tim and Sasha for so long, if they made it through okay in the apocalypse—Martin knows if he saw Tim and Sasha now, he'd probably be hugging them and saying how good it was to see them, too. Maybe that's why he is dreaming about it. 

When Martin wakes up, sprawled on top of the made bed, it's to the sound of somebody rummaging through something. He lifts his head to see Jon on the floor, rummaging through two bulky bags. Martin rubs at his eyes and says, "Jon? What're you—" 

Jon's head bobs up to look at him, then back down. "Martin, you're—you're up." 

"Um, yeah." Martin pushes his glasses on. "What's… going on?"

"I… found bags. In the closet. Already packed. Rope and maps and change of clothes… and a box of  _ tea,  _ actually." Jon snorts with surprised laughter and waves a bent cardboard box. "Must be your bag, that one."

Martin laughs a little, too, as short and surprised as Jon's laughter. (Has he ever really laughed with Jon? Maybe at one of their birthdays, or… some time like that.) "I guess the, uh… the version of us that was here before, um… we got here…" Jon continues haltingly, "were thinking about leaving."

Martin looks down at the bags on the floor, the things Jon is sorting through. Jon adds, carefully, "I… I think that might be a good next step, for us."

Martin blinks in surprise at that. "What,  _ leaving? _ "

"... Yes." When Martin looks back at Jon, he's fidgeting, a bit nervously. "Maybe it's a silly idea, I don't know, but… there might be answers out there. Maybe even… a way back for us, to the  _ right _ time. Or… something. I don't know. And perhaps out there… we could find the others."

Martin swallows hard. "Tim and Sasha, you mean," he says, and he's thinking about the Jon in his dream, hugging them like he hadn't seen them for a very long time. 

"Yes. I-if they've made it through all of this all right… I—I would like to see them." 

Jon's staring down at his hands now, like he's never seen them before, and Martin supposes he hasn't. He swallows again, swings his legs off the bed and says, "I want to see them, too. Maybe… maybe they can fill us in on what we've missed. Or maybe…" Another daring and unlikely idea takes hold in Martin's mind, and he finishes, "... Maybe they've switched, too.  _ Our  _ Tim and Sasha, I mean. Maybe they're here, too, our Tim and Sasha, and we can all figure out how to get back." He hopes this is the case, that they've somehow all been transplanted, and this is just one of those odd scenarios they can give a statement about, or something like that. Tim and Sasha have spent a lot of time at the Institute—Martin thinks Sasha's been here longer than Jon has, even… maybe they'll have some idea of how to get home.

Jon's face sort of twitches and he nods. "I… yes. Yes, maybe they have. So… you're alright with leaving? If you'd rather… stay behind…"

"No, no, no, I can… We shouldn't separate," Martin says, possibly too quickly. He doesn't want to be alone here in this big empty house, listening to the silence and the wind howling outside, and he doesn't want Jon to go out by himself and get hurt or anything. So whatever they do, they should go together. He just… "Is it a good idea, t-to leave?" he adds tentatively. "With the… eye in the sky and everything? The apocalypse? Is it… safe?"

It's more of a rhetorical question than anything, get them to think over their options before they make an impulse decision. But Jon's face shifts, goes almost blank, and he says, "I'm invulnerable enough to all of this. It won't hurt me. And you'll be safe with me." 

The blankness in his tone, his expression, pushes Martin back to that moment on the couch before, when he'd somehow known what Martin had read upstairs. He runs a hand over his eyes and says tiredly, "Jon, how did you…"

"I don't… I don't  _ know, _ " Jon says, tone normal again and thick with frustration, shaking his head. "It just keeps… happening like this, and I can't explain it, but Martin, I swear I don't…"

"It's fine," Martin says quickly. "Really, Jon, don't worry about it, it's…" He waves a hand in the air like he's erasing the original question; they shouldn't linger over this if it's so clearly upsetting Jon. In the grand scheme of this horrible mess, Jon's random incidents of… psychic sort of intuition seem like a minor problem. (He remembers what he said earlier, about Jon clearly having some spooky powers now; this is probably part of that.) "You… you said it  _ is _ safe for us out there? We can leave without being hurt?"

Jon nods, his face flushing a bit. "Y-yes. I… that's what I said, isn't it? I suppose we have no reason to believe that isn't… correct."

"Okay." Martin sighs slowly, twisting the hair tie on his wrist again; he does it so automatically that he wonders if it is a nervous tic now, that he wonders where he's gotten this hair tie from. "Okay, let's… let's do it then."

Jon's eyes light up a little at that, almost like he didn't expect Martin to say yes. "Really? You… you do think it's a good idea, then?"

"Best one we've had so far," says Martin. "At least it's… at least it's actually  _ doing  _ something, not just… sitting here, you know? I  _ hate  _ just, you know, sitting and waiting for something to change." He did it for two weeks, sitting fearful on the other side of a pounding door and trying to think of how to get out, wanting to run but feeling as if he would die if he did. He'd hated it, wished he'd done more, felt like he was abandoning his mum and everyone at the Archives, and all of it, by cowering behind a door. He spent so long wondering if anyone would come for him, hoping they would. He knows that won't happen now—or that even if it would, they can't wait for it. They've got to do something about it themselves. 

"Besides, you're right," he adds, "maybe we can get answers out there. Find Tim and Sasha and make sure they're safe. Or… do some good, I don't know. Hunt our evil boss down or something." Martin's mostly kidding when he says that, but it sounds like a good idea as soon as it's out of his mouth. Why should Jonah Magnus (Elias?) get to sit around and enjoy all of this, if he’s done all the horrible things that tape suggests he has? The obvious solution is to just, well, prevent the end of the world before it happens, when they go back home. But no use in just sitting around and waiting for that to happen. It could be a long time. They've got to do what they can while they're here. (And if that comes with a chance for revenge, who is he to deny it?) "Can't stand just sitting around here anyway," he adds lamely, flushing a little when he realizes he's already said that.

"Me either," Jon says quietly. "Not when I've…" He cuts off abruptly, shaking his head. "So we'll go then? It seems like what… some version of us would want. And we have the bags…"

"Yes," Martin says, standing. "Yes, let's go." He stoops and scoops up the bag with the tea; it does seem like his, after all. "No time like the present, right?"

"R-right," Jon says, and he grabs the other bag and shoulders it. "Let's… let's go, then." He sounds almost eager, almost relieved, and Martin wonders if Jon is as anxious to make this right as he is. 

They make it all the way to the porch—peel back the tape over the crack in the door, unlock the three locks, and step out together—before they stop. Stop at the steps, staring out at everything in front of them. There is the yard, and there is the gate, and then there is… nothing. A barren landscape. A rotten earth. Armageddon. The sky is still the wrong color, and the eye still hangs there, and far off, in the distance, Martin sees something tall jutting out from the ground. A tower, he thinks. Thematically appropriate. 

He has the sudden, strange urge to take Jon's hand. He can't explain it at all; his hand just drifts out automatically, like he expects to take Jon's hand and Jon to not mind. It stops midway, when he realizes what he's doing, but it stops strangely; held halfway out in the space between them, Martin's hand pauses when his fingers brush against Jon's. Like… like  _ Jon _ was reaching out to take his hand, too. 

Before Martin can say anything, Jon clears his throat, and then they're both pulling their hands back at the same time. "Are you… are you ready?" he asks quietly. 

Martin nods, his head feeling strangely heavy. His hand opens and closes around the space where Jon's hand isn't, fingers brushing his palm, and a part of him desperately does not want to leave this house, but a stronger part of him knows he has to. "Yeah," he says, "I'm ready."

The two of them step off the porch and walk down the path towards the gate, not stopping this time. Martin tells himself that he is ready for whatever they find on the other side—even if it feels like a lie. 

\---

They walk for a long time. Martin isn't sure how long. The passage of time isn't obvious; all that he can really register is the rise and fall of feet, the endless plodding through the colorless, flat landscape. Looks nothing like Scotland. (But then again, it's not like he knows what Scotland looks like. Since this version of him has never been.)

He and Jon keep up the same pace, incredibly enough—Martin figured he would be lagging behind the whole time. Jon stays quiet, mostly, staring out at the path ahead, at the dot of a tower on the horizon. (At one point, Martin asks what the tower is all about, and Jon says in that same unusual voice, "That's the Panopticon. Elias is there—or Magnus. Jonah Magnus. Watching the entire world." Martin isn't sure what to say to that. He's not really phased by the voice by now; he figures he'll need to get used to Jon just randomly knowing things time and again.) He supposes they're headed towards the tower, towards Elias, but he doesn't know. Shouldn't they be headed towards Tim and Sasha, wherever the hell they are? How will they  _ know  _ where they are? Did the other versions of them know? Could—could Jon know?

Martin doesn't know how long they've been walking, but it feels like too long. Too long for him to still be upright, although he isn't tired at all. Too long to still be walking in silence. It's starting to feel a bit ridiculous. 

So finally, after a few moments of poking through the shifting bits of his brain, Martin sighs, takes a breath, and says, "Jon, where are we? Where are we going?"

"I don't know, Martin. Why would I—" Jon cuts his words off abruptly, mouth shutting, brow furrowed, looking confused. And then he speaks again, that same tone: "We're approaching the first trench. Kinloss Barracks, originally. It's the first step on this journey; we have to pass through."

"What tren—?" Martin starts, and then stops, because in front of him, he sees the ground dipping down. It's about a hundred feet away, maybe, and there's a strange aura around it, something almost red, like a haze… and low in the air, the sound of bagpipes. He shudders a little, taking a step back, suddenly overtaken by feelings of sickness. "What—what  _ is  _ that?"

"I don't know," Jon says faintly. "I-I  _ don't. _ D-don't ask me again." He sounds like he's arguing with someone—not even with Martin, but almost with himself. 

"Where are we  _ going, _ Jon?" Martin says tiredly, his eyes on the trench. He can't look away, and he cannot silence the voice in his head insisting that he cannot go in there, that he  _ won't  _ go in there. "I don't—we're walking towards the tower, I guess there's not much else  _ to  _ walk towards, and I mean, I don't mind going off to… confront Elias or whatever…" An absent part of his mind notes that it's odd, standing around talking about fighting his  _ boss _ , who is apparently evil and ended the goddamn world, but he ignores it. "... but aren't we looking for Tim and Sasha? I mean, are  _ they _ that way?"

"I don't  _ know _ ," says Jon, angrier now, his voice taking on a familiarly harsh tone. 

"But you've known things before!" Martin says, probably harsher than  _ he  _ should, because in this instant Martin's back in the office listening to the tapes, hearing the things Jon says about him. (Useless ass. Blessed relief to have him out of the office. Contribute nothing but delays.) He's looking at those photos of a Martin and a Jon he doesn't recognize, unable to believe that they could ever be friends like  _ this _ , because Jon  _ hates  _ him. "You've done it three or four times since we've woken up. You did it  _ just now! _ "

"I don't know how that happened! I don't understand how  _ any  _ of this is happening. I don't understand how I've woken up in the future in the midst of an apocalypse with  _ you _ , and I  _ don't _ know how to find Tim and Sasha, all right?" Jon snaps.

Something prickles at the end of Martin's spine at that, and he snaps right back, "Look, I'm sure it's very taxing for you to have woken up here with  _ me,  _ but we've got bigger problems right now than the fact that you don't like me. Tim and Sasha could be in  _ trouble, _ and we need to find them."

"You think I don't know that? You think I haven't considered where they could have ended up? What could be…" Jon cuts off mid-sentence, staring at Martin like he's never seen him before. "I don't… I don't  _ dislike  _ you, Martin," he says faintly, as if that was the  _ point  _ of what Martin said. As if that's what's important. (As if that's even  _ true _ .)

Martin laughs, bitter, and looks away, back towards the trench and the rising red mist. "You don't have to  _ lie, _ Jon. You've made it obvious enough."

"Martin, I don't—" Jon sounds like he is choking on something. "Just because we… clash professionally—"

"Oh, yeah, that's one way to put it." Martin thinks of his CV, as he so often does, and thinks about just spilling it all right then. Wonders what Jon would say if he knew that he was right about Martin all along. Tim knows, but no one else does, and he  _ swore _ he wouldn't… well, it's not like he can really be fired right now, and there are much bigger issues at hand, but Martin can't stand the idea that Jon would get… smug or something over that. He opts for a different route, then, the words spilling out before he can hold them back, or even really think about it: "When you're gone for two weeks and no one even notices, you get a  _ pretty  _ good idea of how your coworkers view you."

Which isn't fair, and he knows it as soon as he says it. Prentiss took his phone; he  _ knows  _ this. Texted Jon and Tim and Sasha and probably his mum. But it feels good to say; Martin hates how good it feels to say. 

Jon, for his part, reels back a bit like Martin's hit him. "Martin, you  _ know _ that Prentiss… that is to say, we didn't…"

Martin shrugs, bitterly. Feeling as if he's saying all the things he's wanted to say all along, sitting in that storage room day in and day out with no one to talk to except on the nights he goes to the pub with Sasha and Tim, or showers at one of their places. Everything he wanted to say when he was sitting on the floor of his flat with his hands over his ears to block out all the knocking. "Apparently that was all it took."

"Tim and Sasha talked about going to check on you. Quite often," Jon says, defensively. "And I…"

"You what, Jon?" The anger's leeching out of him now, to the point where Martin mostly just feels pathetic. He knows that Sasha and Tim thought about coming to check on him; he knows that. They told him. They apologized about a million times. He isn't mad at them, really; he isn't even sure he's mad at Jon. He's just. He's tired and scared and worried about his friends, and he wants to go home, real home, and he just isn't sure about any of this, doesn't know how Jon could go from hating him so deeply to being friends like what he saw in the house. Like what he's seen in those dreams. "You what?" he says again. 

"I—tried to call you," Jon says quietly. "You never picked up."

"Prentiss wasn't keen to talk, then?" Martin twists the hair tie so hard it hurts. "It doesn't matter, Jon. I know you thought it was a relief I was gone. And it doesn't matter. I just—can you  _ try _ to figure out where Tim and Sasha are? Please?"

Jon's expression hardens a little. "I don't know what you think I can  _ do _ —I don't understand why you keep acting like I can just… reach out and pull that information out of thin air!"

"Because  _ you've done it before! _ You read my mind last night!"

"I didn't—I told you I didn't  _ mean _ to do that!"

"That doesn't  _ matter.  _ If we can  _ know _ where Sasha and Tim  _ are… _ "

"Martin," says Jon, suddenly insistent. 

"I mean, what's the alternative? Stumbling around this apocalypse, from o-one danger to another, just hoping we stumble into…"

" _ Martin _ ." Jon seizes the sleeve of his jacket and tugs, stopping Martin mid-sentence. "Look." He points, indicatively, over Martin's shoulder. 

Fear curdles instinctively in Martin's stomach and he turns, slowly, feeling as if he's in a horror movie, about to be jumped out at. 

The first thing he sees, when he turns, is a door. A cheerily painted yellow door. Which wouldn't be an alarming sight all on its own, except for the fact that they aren't indoors, and that there isn't a house attached to it. It's just hanging there, in mid-air. And it wasn't there before. 

"What—where did that come from?" Martin says, almost in a whisper. He looks over at Jon, who has a similar look of panic on his face, who still has ahold of Martin's sleeve. He meets Martin's eyes and shakes his head, loosening his grip abruptly. 

The door creaks open, suddenly, hinges screeching like they really  _ are  _ in a horror movie. Martin tenses in anticipation for what's going to come out the other end—pushes himself in front of Jon like he's trying to protect him, even though they were arguing literally  _ moments  _ before—and feels Jon's hand press against his shoulder like he's trying to shove Martin out of the way or something. But their eyes are glued to the door, and they say nothing, as the yellow door swings open and a woman steps out. 

Martin doesn't recognize her. That's the first thing that registers, that he doesn't know her, and he feels a faint brush of disappointment. (He guesses a small part of him hoped it would be Tim and Sasha.) The second thing that registers is that there's something… off. Wrong. She looks fuzzy, almost, something different about the eyes, and her hands are… They look  _ sharp.  _ Like they might slice right through him if she wanted to. But aside from all this, the woman looks almost  _ friendly _ . She's smiling hugely at them, almost like she  _ knows  _ them. "Hello, Jon, Martin," she says sweetly, confirming that suspicion right there. "Am I interrupting a lover's spat?" 

Martin is the one to make a choking sound this time, sputtering like he's a garbage disposal with a fork stuck in it. Beside him, Jon—who has pushed himself forward and is almost standing in front of Martin now, almost like  _ he  _ wants to protect  _ Martin _ —says in a sharp voice, "Who  _ are  _ you?"

The woman looks almost stunned for a moment before her expression evens out. "That's not polite, Archivist," she says scoldingly. "Pretending not to recognize me."

Some ridiculous part of Martin speaks up, and what it says is, "His name is  _ Jon _ ." Like that matters at all if this woman is going to… kill them, or something. 

"I  _ know _ that," the woman says, like she's hurt. "And you know my name, too."

"Actually, we don't," Jon says irritably. 

The woman looks slightly annoyed now, so Martin adds, "We're not, um, really from around here." Just to be polite. He's not sure  _ why  _ he feels the urge to be polite to this woman he doesn't recognize, but, well, politeness is kind of his default. And if she knows them—maybe she knows something about what's happened. Maybe she can  _ help  _ them. 

The woman stares at them for a moment, contemplatively, studying them deeply. And then she smiles.  _ Knowingly  _ smiles, like something has changed. " _ Oh, _ " she says, easily. "I should have seen this earlier. What's happened to the two of you—it's not far off from the things that happen inside me."

" _ What? _ " says Jon. 

The woman shrugs. "Having trouble knowing things? You must feel like a fish out of water, waking up here with all this  _ power  _ and  _ no  _ idea how to use it. Positively  _ lost. _ "

"What are you  _ talking about _ ?" Jon presses, arms crossed tight over his chest, glaring straight at the woman. Maybe Martin should try to get him to back off, but he'd admittedly like to know, too. 

"You aren't the Jon and Martin I know. That much is clear." The woman smiles wider, so wide it looks like it might split her face. "Well. I am Helen, and I'm a friend. You might know me as Michael, where you're from."

"Sasha's Michael," says Martin. "From her statement." Helen looks at him like a sort of a confirmation, still grinning.

"You're… Michael?" Jon says, sounding very confused. "The one in the… i-in the cemetery? Who got the worm out of Sasha?"

"I  _ was  _ Michael. Now I'm Helen. Or… Helen is me."

That doesn't make any sense. But Martin doesn't press; he's still hoping Helen will help them. "And we're… friends?" he says hopefully. 

"We  _ are,  _ Martin. I  _ know  _ your future selves—present selves, that is—would agree." 

Jon makes a sound like he disagrees with this, but Martin doesn't press. He smiles himself, cheerily as he can, and says, "Well, that's a relief. Haven't really met anyone friendly here—haven't, uh,  _ seen  _ anyone _ ,  _ actually."

"Martin _ , _ " Jon says under his breath. Martin ignores him. "So I— _ we  _ were wondering, maybe you could help us? We're a little… lost right now." He chuckles a little self-deprecatingly. 

Helen mock-gasps. "The Archivist, asking  _ me  _ for information? The irony is endless."

"Whatever… grudges you have against us, we don't  _ remember _ ," Jon says sharply. "We haven't done them yet."

"Of course not, of course not. And don't be silly— _ grudges _ ." Helen shakes her head as if dismissing the idea. "What can I help you with, Martin?"

Martin clears his throat, a little nervously. This is what he wanted, sure, but now he has a twisting feeling of distrust somewhere behind his ribs. He isn't sure  _ what  _ to think. "We… we're looking for our friends, actually," he says anyway. Tim and Sasha being safe is more important. 

Jon says, " _ Martin, _ " insistently again, but Martin keeps going. "Sasha James and Tim Stoker? Do you know them, too? We… don't know where they ended up, in all this, and we thought… we want to make sure they're safe. Maybe even… see if they switched, too, I dunno." 

He's going for a joke at the end there, but Helen clearly doesn't think it's funny. Her expression is something Martin can't read now, but if he had to guess, he'd say it's something like… pity. "Oh, dear," she says quietly. "I hadn't even  _ thought  _ of that."

"Thought of what?" Jon says, stepping forward so he is in front of Martin now. "Do you  _ know  _ something? Are they all right?" And Martin's heart is pounding now, pounding hard, and his palms are sweating, and he doesn't know  _ why  _ because Helen hasn't even said anything. Maybe Sasha and Tim hate them now? Maybe he's just reaching for easy explanations to keep himself happy. 

"I  _ really  _ shouldn't be the one to tell you this," Helen says contemplatively. "Although I do know some of it. I kept an eye on Sasha, when I was Michael… and I could see what happened to Tim as well. He crossed my threshold. As did you, Martin."

Martin feels sick on his stomach. "What the  _ hell  _ are you talking about?" he says, and it's meant to sound harsh, angry, but instead it just sounds small. Afraid. He doesn't want to hear what Helen has to say. 

" _ Tell us, _ " Jon snaps, and his voice is nearly crackling with anger. "You know what happened to them, and you  _ need  _ to tell us, now."

Helen's face hardens, just a bit. "Do not attempt to compel me, Jon," she says sternly. "You  _ should  _ know better. Especially when I am offering the information  _ you  _ can't see yourself, of my own free will."

" _ Tell  _ us, then. Now." Jon's voice is shot through with pain and anger and a strange undercurrent of something like power, almost, and Martin does not want to hear what Helen is going to say, but he blurts, " _ Please, _ " anyways. 

"They're dead," Helen says simply. 

Something rushes in Martin's ears, something like the ocean, and he's swaying a bit in place. He's going to throw up. "You—you're lying," Jon says, muffled. Sounding like his voice is breaking, like he's going to cry. 

"You know I'm not, Jon. You  _ Know  _ I'm not." 

Martin bites down on his lip so hard he tastes copper; he can hear the waves crashing, nowhere near the ocean. "They—they  _ can't… _ " he says, like it's going to change anything. Like he can change something he already  _ knew,  _ a little, and he's… He hasn't known anyone who's died since his grandad, and he was  _ nine  _ then, and Tim and Sasha are… They can't be  _ gone _ , he just saw them, they're completely all right, and now this woman he doesn't know is telling him that they're  _ gone? _ The thing he's feared all this time. They're too late. He presses a hand over his mouth and feels salt water on his palm. Or maybe blood. 

"They have. I'm  _ so _ sorry, Martin." Helen almost sounds genuine. Not quite, but almost. 

Martin's hand shoots out and lands on Jon's shoulder, like he might fall down if he doesn't, and Jon doesn't yank away or anything like that. He's staring at Helen, eyes like daggers, and it sounds painful when he says, " _ How. _ " Not a question. Not a question. 

"Tim was an explosion," Helen says. "An attempt of yours to save the world. It worked, I suppose—it was what he wanted. You almost died yourself there, Jon. I remember." Jon makes a sharp sound, maybe to the  _ explosion  _ bit, or the trying to save the world. Maybe to the idea that he almost died, too. Could be any of it, really. Martin's eyes slide shut, stinging. 

"And Sasha… poor Sasha," Helen continues. "She's been gone longer. They replaced her, yes? I believe that's what happened. I saw some of it, when Michael was me. It  _ wasn't Sasha… _ it was Not-Sasha, you called it. It replaced her, and pretended to be her. It was that table in Artifact Storage, I think, that did it. It took quite a long time for you to notice."

Jon makes another sound. Martin shakes his head, still leaning too hard on Jon. Like denying it will do anything. "I  _ did  _ try to warn you," says Helen. "I did. You didn't understand. There was so much you didn't understand then—so much you don't understand  _ now _ ." 

" _ Go, _ " Jon says, suddenly. Martin opens his eyes and sees Jon glaring at Helen. Sees him motion towards the door that came from nowhere. It's still open and there are halls beyond it, halls with colorful, swirling wallpaper; Martin doesn't know why but this wallpaper makes him shudder all over, like he's cold, and tears are dripping down his cheeks, and Tim and Sasha are  _ dead.  _ He swallows nausea back. 

"Really, Jon. I told you what you wanted to hear. I can  _ help  _ you—there's plenty more to catch you up on," says Helen. 

"Leave us  _ alone _ . Now," Jon snaps, his words quivering even as they command authority. 

"All right. I suppose you  _ do  _ both have a lot to process." Helen turns towards her door. Stops and looks back over her shoulders. Her form blurs even more, and that's when Martin realizes he is crying. He scrubs at his face with the back of his hand. 

"I  _ am _ sorry I had to break the news like this," Helen says. "I do want us to be friends. In this new world you've created… think of all that we can  _ do. _ "

" _ Go. _ " The word rips itself out of Martin's throat this time, before he even realizes it. And this time, Helen listens. The yellow door opens and shuts and then she is gone. And then they are alone in this howling landscape, with the sound of bagpipes still faint in the difference. 

Martin can't catch his breath. He keeps trying and it hitches in his throat; he wipes at his face but the tears keep falling. Tim and Sasha.  _ Tim and Sasha,  _ and how can they be  _ dead?  _ He  _ just saw them;  _ they went for drinks in his last night in the past, and they were in his dreams, the dreams he's had since he came here, where Jon… where Jon hugged them like he hadn't seen them in a long time. Where the dream him wanted to say,  _ You're alive,  _ to them, and how could he be so fucking stupid? How could he not  _ know? _ He's just been walking around, thinking they were both all right and he and Jon could save them—stupid Martin with the heroics again, he's never been able to help anyone, not his mum, and not himself, and he was part of making Jon able to end the world, and he let  _ Tim and Sasha die _ . Didn't even  _ know  _ when Sasha died, apparently, something was pretending to be her and he didn't know and he didn't know they were dead  _ here…  _

Martin sways forward without realizing it, weak on his feet. And then he's on his knees. He's staring at the rotten ground, and the tears are still falling, and he can't breathe. "Jon?" he chokes out, and he's shocked he can speak when he does. "J-Jon, what do we—what do we do now?"

Jon doesn't answer. Martin's not leaning on him anymore—hasn't pulled Jon to the ground alongside him—and Martin can't see him. He swipes at his eyes, takes three trembling breaths, and tries again: "J-Jon?" He looks up then, over his shoulder, and finds Jon's hands over his face. Jon's shoulders shaking up and down. Muffled sounds of sobs coming from behind his hands.

And this is when Martin realizes that Jon is crying, too. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i borrowed some dialogue for this chapter from mag 39, 119, and 165. many thanks to the transcripts for this. content warnings for this chapter include canon typical violence, canonical depictions of death and some further depictions of grief. 
> 
> if you haven't already, check out the art by @bisexualoftheblade, @eternallysadaboutjontim, @corvidtowers, and  
> @chromaticmelody on tumblr! and i'm on tumblr at @ghostbustermelanieking if anyone wants to come and discuss this podcast with me.

Martin doesn't know how they get back to the house. Doesn't remember the journey. It's all sort of a mess between turning away from the trench and the tower and the spot where the door used to be, and stumbling up the path and the stairs to the porch to push their way into the house. Jon locks the door behind them with a shaking hand, three consecutive clicks. Martin turns away from the doors and the windows they've left covered, peels off his jacket and walks numbly to the couch and collapses into the cushions. He doesn't have the energy to go anywhere else. He can't even remember making the decision to come back; it's like he and Jon came to some silent, mutual agreement that this was what they should do. 

The couch cushions dip as Jon sits down on the other side of the couch. They don't say anything. Martin stares down at his feet, the mud caked on his shoes that he hasn't taken off yet even though he should, and doesn't say anything because he doesn't know what to say. Their friends are dead. They're stuck in the future with no way of getting home. The world has ended and their boss is evil and they've lost two years, at least, and Tim and Sasha are dead, and Martin can't take it. He shuts his eyes and knots his fingers together and listens to the unsteady sound of Jon breathing. He wonders if Jon is on the verge of tears, too. 

On the coffee table, suddenly, a tape recorder clicks to life. They both jump at the sound. A familiar voice floats out of it, a familiar voice.  _ Sasha's _ voice. Talking to the recorder the way Jon does sometimes. 

Beside Martin, Jon makes a strangled sound like he's been punched in the stomach. Martin presses a hand to his mouth. After what Helen told them—after everything they've found out today—hearing Sasha's voice feels like hearing the voice of a ghost. Even though their Sasha is alive and well in 2016. (But not for much longer.) Martin feels sick all over again. 

Sasha's talking about her time in Artifact Storage, an undercurrent of trembling fear in her voice, and it still sounds like  _ her  _ voice, not like… well, not like anyone else. Not like someone who isn't Sasha. And then it changes, takes on a slower quality.  _ Oh, hey. I’ve found… I’ve found that table you were talking about, _ she says.  _ Don’t really see what all the fuss is about. Just a… basic… optical illusion. _ And Jon makes another choking sound at that, and Martin is thinking of the Amy Patel statement. Of the table in that statement, the one that Amy Patel had described as  _ hypnotic.  _ Helen said it was a table, Helen said that something  _ replaced  _ Sasha, and all Martin had been able to think about was that statement. He's thinking of the Amy Patel statement, of the watching and the table and the—and the person  _ who was not Graham. _

The tape continues playing. _ Nothing special… just… just a… wait… _ Sasha pauses uncertainly, and then when she starts speaking again, it is quicker, tighter. Urgent.  _ Jon! _ she says.  _ Jon, I think there’s someone here. Hello? I see you. Show yourself. _

And then the tape makes a strange sound. A strange, distorted sound that gives way into a scream. Sasha is screaming, high and pained and full of fear. A real scream. Martin presses his hand even harder over his mouth until his teeth press into his palm. Taste of copper in his mouth. He's thinking, _No, no, no, no, no, no, no,_ nearly doubled over on the couch, but it isn't working, nothing works, the scream keeps on going, rising and rising. 

Sasha drops the tape recorder. A distorted, garbled voice, the voice that must belong to the thing that killed her (that  _ killed Sasha,  _ Jesus fucking Christ, she's really gone), repeats Sasha's last words.  _ Hello? I see you.  _ And then, clearer the second time: _ I see you.  _

Tears are spilling over Martin's hand, and Jon's shaking his head a little, and they should really just turn it off, turn it  _ off  _ because Martin doesn't want to listen anymore, and he doesn't want to hear anymore, doesn't just want to sit here and do  _ nothing _ while Sasha dies  _ screaming _ , but they don't move, and the tape recorder keeps running. It clicks, and then a different voice is coming out. Tim's voice, and Jon's. The Jon on tape saying,  _ Tim, what's in your hand?  _ and Tim, sounding miserable and disoriented, saying,  _ It’s… I don’t… The detonator.  _

The Jon on the couch gasps a little, and Martin turns a little to look and see he's crying, too, and he understands what they're listening to. The tapes are showing them Tim and Sasha's deaths. And he doesn't want to hear this, either, doesn't want to sit here and listen and do  _ nothing _ , but he doesn't move, he has to do this, he owes them this when clearly he didn't do  _ anything _ to save them the first time. 

On the tape, Tim is arguing with warped voices Martin doesn't recognize. He tells them to get back, and then he says,  _ Jon. I don’t know if you can hear me, but if you can… then I don’t forgive you. But thank you for this. _ Jon is really crying now, hard. Martin can't breathe. He shuts his eyes and tries to keep listening, tries to quieten his own sobs enough so that he can pay attention to  _ Tim's last words,  _ but his mind is racing, and all he can think is,  _ Why wasn't I there? Why am I not there? Why did I fucking  _ leave  _ them there? _

_ You sound stressed. You know I hear the great Grimaldi’s in town. You should go see it, cheer yourself up,  _ Tim says. The thing he's been arguing with says,  _ That's. Not. Funny,  _ in a furious voice, and Tim says,  _ I know.  _ And then the tape crackles and shakes with the sounds of an explosion before cutting off. Finished. 

It doesn't play anything else. Must be out of horrific deaths to show them. Martin might laugh if he wasn't busy sobbing, crying harder than he's cried in years and unable to stop thinking,  _ I should have been there, why wasn't I fucking  _ there _?  _ It's just like his mum, he's never there when he needs to be. Not there to stop Tim and Sasha from dying. Not there at  _ all _ . It could've been him. It very easily could have been him—incompetent, useless Martin. Maybe it  _ should  _ have been him. If anyone deserved to die in all this, it certainly wasn't Tim and Sasha. They died and Martin wasn't even there to  _ try  _ to help or stop it or offer to go instead… At least he and Jon made it through, and he isn't sure how because Jon was on that tape, but they're here, and… and Tim and Sasha are gone, and Martin doesn't understand how it wasn't him. 

Martin's still crying (face wet, tinges of copper still in his mouth) when he feels the left side of the couch rise up, from where Jon is sitting. "Jon?" he croaks, and he looks up to see Jon already standing, his back to Martin. His shoulders still quivering with silent sobs. 

"Jon," Martin says again, too quiet, but Jon won't look back at him. Tim's and Sasha's voices echo through Martin's head again; it was Jon that they were talking to, there at the end. 

Jon won't look at him. Martin reaches out and tries to catch his hand, tries to pull him back over to sit—the words building up in his throat, ones he's said all too often, ones he truly still means— _ It's not your fault.  _ And  _ I'm sorry.  _ Sorry for the things he said before, sorry they landed here _ ,  _ sorry Tim and Sasha are dead. He says Jon's name again. But Jon won't look at him. 

He pulls his hand abruptly from Martin's and leaves the room without looking back. Martin doesn't try to stop him. 

\---

Martin thinks he's fallen asleep again. It seems impossible that he could have fallen asleep  _ again,  _ after everything, but he's worn out by crying, tear-stained and curled up against the arm of the couch, and it just feels inevitable. He  _ must _ be asleep, because he's back in the office now, blinking at his computer screen like he's been staring into the sun, and the date on his computer reads 30 April 2016… 

"Martin?" Sasha is by his desk now, holding a steaming mug. Martin stares at her like he has never seen her before. She looks completely normal, just  _ Sasha _ : tall and glasses and dark hair tumbling over one shoulder. Martin wants to say that he couldn't forget Sasha, but clearly he  _ can.  _ He  _ did _ ; he has the proof right here. 

Sasha makes a bit of a goofy face at him and says, "Come on, now, I know I don't do it as well as you, but you deserve someone bringing you tea every now and then. I know Jon's been making it lately, but…"

"Sasha?" Martin says faintly. 

She stops, a faint look of concern on her face, and sets the mug down on his desk. "Yeah?" 

Martin's throat is clogged, built up against the words he wants to say; he pushes against it, blinks hard and drags a hand across his eyes and says, "I'm so sorry. Sasha, I'm so sorry I wasn't… that I wasn't there…"

"What?" Sasha looks confused now, and she's got one hand pressed to her shoulder—Michael, Martin supplies, the one he cut, the worm she hadn't even realized was in her. "Martin, what do you—in… in the cemetery? Martin, that was weeks ago, you don't need to…"

"N-no," Martin says faintly. "No, not then." He's reaching back, trying to remember everything he heard on that tape, everything Sasha said—is he really even back, is this permanent? Is this just another fleeting dream he's going to wake up from two years in the future? Is this really even him talking? (He doesn't suppose it matters if it is; any version of him, present or future, would want to save Sasha.) If this is permanent, he needs to do more, he needs to warn Tim, but for now… 

"Don't go into Artifact Storage," he says quickly, as firmly as he can. 

Sasha blinks in surprise, staring at him blankly. "Martin, a-are you okay?" she says gently. "Is… is it happening again?"

Martin doesn't know what she means and he can't ask, he doesn't have enough  _ time  _ for that. "Doesn't matter, just—just  _ stay out  _ of Artifact Storage. Okay? D-don't go in there, especially not alone, and…" He's remembering what Sasha said about the table on the tape, he's hearing the voice of that Helen woman again— _ They replaced her, yes? I believe that's what happened. It  _ wasn't Sasha…  _ it was Not-Sasha, you called it…  _ He keeps hearing the way Sasha  _ screamed…  _

"Stay away from any weird tables," Martin blurts, fierce as he can. "Anything t-that looks wrong, or like it might have come from… the Amy Patel statement. Anything like that."

Sasha looks almost scared now. She sits down next to him, her wide eyes glued to his face, and she says, "Martin, what are you…"

"Just… please. Sasha,  _ please. _ " Martin can feel the tears building up now, and he swipes at his face with the back of his hand. He can feel something burning deep in his chest, more words he might want to say that he can't completely get out, and he swallows hard and wipes his eyes and says, "Y-you have to stay out, okay? Please. Trust me on this."

Sasha's face grows harder, almost like she… understands, or something, and she seizes Martin's hand and holds tight and says, "It's happening again, isn't it? Martin, what's… what's going to happen if I go into Artifact Storage?" 

Things are going fuzzy around the edges. Martin sways a little, holding on too hard to Sasha's hand. His mouth moves, he says, "We're… we're going to fix it, Sasha," but he's not sure it's him who says it. Not sure it's  _ this  _ him. 

"Martin? Martin, please explain. Y-you and Jon, a few days ago, you… started acting… Martin, what's going to  _ happen? _ " Sasha's saying, firm as Martin's ever heard  _ her,  _ but he can't answer because it's all going soft and fuzzy around the edges, like an old piece of film burning or something, and it's all just a dream anyway. He holds onto her hand and mumbles, "I'm so sorry," again but he's not sure she's heard. 

Martin wakes up. He's still on the couch, in the safe house in Scotland, and the wind is still howling outside. He puts his hands over his eyes, raw from crying, and turns over, unwilling to face any of this right now. He and Jon are stuck in an apocalypse that they were used as pawns to create, useless cogs in a fucking machine. Tim and Sasha are dead. Tim and Sasha are dead. There might be no way home, they might be stuck here forever, and Sasha and Tim are  _ dead…  _

Martin sits up, so fast it almost makes him nauseous, and scrubs his hands over his face again. It feels useless to just  _ sit here  _ like this, when so much has happened, just sit around and do nothing. And he's been acting like it's permanent, like it can't be changed, and maybe it can't, Martin doesn't know, but they've, they've  _ time traveled  _ here. And there  _ has _ to be a way to get back, there has to, and when they get back, they'll save Tim and Sasha, just like he said in the dream. They'll  _ fix  _ it. Along with stopping the end of the world, of course. They'll have a full agenda, if they ever get home. 

Martin laughs wetly and immediately regrets it; he shouldn't be laughing, when he's let Sasha and Tim die. They have to get home. They  _ have _ to get home. He's back in his dream for a moment, Sasha holding onto his hand and asking him what happened in Artifact Storage. He hadn't told her. He wouldn't have known  _ what  _ to tell her; he's operating off of the tape and Helen's uneven narrative. The other him would have known what to say. He doesn't even know if this is real. They have to get home and warn them both, and they have to make sure  _ none _ of this ever happens: no one dies, the world doesn't end, and whatever happened to Jon that left him scarred and marked and ready for a ritual never happens in the first place. None of it. They have to get home. 

Martin shakes his head, wipes his eyes again and stands, legs automatically shaky. "Jon?" he calls out, blinking the sleep away and stretching. They need to talk this through. He needs to check on Jon, full stop. He doesn't know where Jon went after he left earlier. "Jon, are you okay?" he calls again. There's no answer. 

Martin pushes his glasses on and turns for the stairs; maybe Jon's gone upstairs. But the bedroom and bathroom are empty, too. Confused, Martin heads back downstairs, calling Jon's name. Still no answer. The house is still silent, except for the howling from outside. (Now that Martin's seen what's on the other side of those curtains, he's not anxious to go back.) Martin checks the living room again, and then the kitchen, and finds them empty still. 

His stomach turns on horrified instinct. "Jon?" he calls, louder, hands clutching at the door, thinking only of Tim and Sasha on those tapes. "Jon!" No answer. Still no answer. 

Martin goes through the whole house again, opening and shutting doors like Jon's going to be crouched in a closet among the linens or something. No one there, no one anywhere. It's just him, opening doors and creaking floorboards and shouting Jon's name in an empty house. Martin keeps looking, checks every room twice more, and the whole time, he's replaying the tape from last night in the back of his mind. Remembering how Tim and Sasha sounded just before they died. Wondering if Jon has died, too, right under his nose, and he's let it happen again, he's done  _ nothing _ and now he's lost someone else  _ again _ . Martin's ready to cry by his third check of the kitchen, frustrated and furious at himself for  _ falling asleep  _ and letting Jon walk off when he was  _ clearly _ blaming himself for Tim and Sasha, and after he said all of those things to Jon earlier while they were arguing. Martin's berating himself for being so fucking  _ stupid _ —the other him must be  _ furious _ , wherever he is, that Martin hasn't learned anything, that he's showing up and fucking things up more and letting the only friend he has left walk off… 

Martin collapses at the kitchen table, pulls his glasses off to rub his raw eyes and mutters, "Jon, where did you  _ go? _ " Maybe it's intended to be irritated, put out at Jon disappearing when he's already so on edge, but it just comes out sounding sad. Small and scared. He runs at his eyes again and stares down at the table, and that's when he sees the scrap of paper sitting on the top. A scrap of paper with familiar handwriting scrawled across it. 

Martin grabs it so fast he ends up with a paper cut, sliced across his thumb, and reads it, and as he reads, the sick feeling only increases.  _ Martin,  _ it says, written in a hurried hand.  _ I'm sorry. I have to go. You didn't sign up for this, or cause this, and I can't put you in danger by forcing you to fix it.  _ And then, mostly scribbled out,  _ I won't let you die too. _ It finishes,  _ I owe you more than I can really repay. I'm sorry for all of it. I'm going to find a way to fix this. Don't come after me. You'll be safe in the cabin. I'll come back for you when it's safe. J.  _

" _ Shit _ ," Martin hisses, letting the note fall to the table top. " _ Christ,  _ Jon, what the hell were you…" 

He doesn't finish; he doesn't see the point in finishing. Jon isn't here to hear it. Instead, he pushes up from the table and into the living room, fumbles for his muddy jacket draped over one arm of the couch, and the bags where they'd dropped them by the door. (Bag; Jon's is gone, and Martin feels silly for not noticing it before.) He can't waste any time. He's not even sure what time  _ is _ , anymore, but he knows he can't wait; who knows how far away Jon got while he was sleeping? 

Martin has to go after him. There's no question. He  _ has  _ to. Jon may be operating off some noble instinct—and Martin appreciates it, he really does, at least Jon hasn't up and left because he's just tired of being around Martin in the first place—but they  _ need  _ to stay together. If Jon wants to save the world, then Martin will have to go with him; it isn't as if he didn't have a hand in ending it, anyway. This is his responsibility, too. And besides that, there's still the matter of getting home. They can't just  _ stay  _ here, not when they've been brought here by forces that can take them  _ back,  _ that could help them save Sasha and Tim and everyone who's died since all of this… They've got to get home, and they've got to do it together. 

And besides all that… it's dangerous out there. Martin has seen it. And Martin's not going to let Jon get himself killed because of it. He won't. Jon doesn't… Jon doesn't deserve that. And Martin couldn't bear it if Jon was gone, too.

Martin shrugs on the jacket and then the bag in one fluid motion, and yanks the door open without hesitation. The eye is still out there, and it still seems to be looking right at Martin. Martin doesn't care. He's been out in this before and survived; he can do it again. 

He breaks into a jog at the bottom of the porch, down the path and into the chaos again. He isn't sure which way Jon has gone, so he can only really guess. He heads for the tower again, the place Jon said Elias is. It seems to be the only place to go, anyway, the path that Jon is on somewhere. He'll follow it and he'll find Jon. That's the way it's going to go. It  _ has _ to. 

\---

Things look different now. Martin can't tell how long he's been walking, once again, but he thinks things look different. He hasn't passed anything familiar, no doors and no trenches with weird red mist. (That's a bit of relief, actually; Martin doesn't want to go through weird trenches alone.) It's almost like everything's shifted around while Martin was sleeping and now it's all different. He doesn't know how to describe it. He hasn't found Jon yet. 

Martin's been trying to figure out  _ where  _ Jon could've gone. It seems like the only real answer is that he's headed for the Panopticon—that's where Elias is, and if Jon wants to fix all this, and if Elias  _ caused  _ this… well, it makes sense. So he is walking in the direction of the Panopticon, too. But it feels like he's walking in the wrong direction, with all of this changed and nothing familiar… he wishes he wasn't alone, in all this. Hard enough to leave on his own, harder still to keep walking through all this… horrific apocalyptic mess alone. He needs to find Jon, so they can figure out how to get home. He needs Jon to get back safe. 

Martin keeps walking and walking, without registering much of anything, until his eyes land on something on the horizon. He has to blink a few times and let the image adjust in his mind, because the sight is so unbelievable. It's a… it's a  _ carousel,  _ like a bastardized prop from a B-movie, except it's all  _ wrong,  _ it's too big, it takes up half the horizon. He can hear circus music, suddenly ( _ calliope  _ music, he can hear Sasha saying, pronouncing it pointedly and sticking her tongue out at Jon, and the memory just makes his chest ache), over the wind, and it makes him shudder all over. 

Martin doesn't know much, but he knows he doesn't want to go near that carousel. But his eyes shift immediately to the tower, and the eye in the sky, and he thinks of Jon, and he knows he doesn't have a choice. He has to find Jon, they've got to do this together. And Jon has to have come this way, he must have. So Martin has to, too. 

Still, it takes a moment to get walking again. A moment of Martin just standing there, hands clenched around the straps of his backpack and staring at the carousel and flinching at the music. He hates this music; if he didn't already, hearing it now would definitely drive him over the edge. He takes a few deep breaths, squeezes the straps and steps forward, one foot after another, because that's what he has to do. 

And then, right on cue, something weird happens. A thought slices through his brain, involuntarily, because Martin doesn't think it. Or at least it doesn't  _ seem _ like it's him thinking it. It's like hearing another voice in his head,  _ his _ voice. Like another part of him is speaking up. There's a voice in his head and it says, very sternly,  _ Where  _ am  _ I?  _

Martin flinches, shakes his head a bit and keeps walking. He guesses involuntary thought isn't the weirdest part of today. But then the voice speaks up again, sterner this time, and it says,  _ Where's Jon?  _

Martin shakes his head harder this time, because he doesn't know where these thoughts are coming from, and the strangeness of not having any control over them…  _ Jesus. _ He's tempted to say,  _ I am  _ looking _ for Jon,  _ except he already knows this, and why should he have to tell  _ himself  _ that? 

Something flashes through his head again—the words:  _ Jon? Jon, where are you?  _ Like a part of him wants to say that, shout it as loud as he can. Martin can actually feel his mouth shaping the words. But he doesn't say it, not out loud, and the part of him that wants to is frustrated. It's saying,  _ Okay, clearly I have left the house, and clearly I am alone, so  _ where is Jon _? I wouldn't have left him! _

"I'm going to find him," Martin mutters, teeth gritted. He takes three more steps towards the carousel, which somehow seems closer now. "I'm going… I'm  _ going  _ to find him." And then his mouth moves, without his permission, and he's shouting, "Jon!" at the top of his lungs. "Jon? Jon!" He gets it out a few more times before he jams his own hand too hard over his mouth. 

And that's when Martin remembers: the dream in the storage room, where he couldn't say what he wanted to say. The dream he  _ just had,  _ where he talked to Sasha, and at the end, he wasn't sure if he was the one still speaking. This… this feels like this. A little. It feels like this, but from the other end. Like someone—like the other him—is watching what he's doing, now. 

"He left me, you know," Martin says. It comes out muffled and jumbled by his palm. " _ He  _ left  _ me.  _ And now  _ I  _ am looking for him. He's not this… benevolent Jon you ended up with, not yet! He  _ left  _ me." Which isn't fair, because Jon left the house to help Martin, to save him or whatever. But he  _ did  _ leave. 

There are more jumbled thoughts that aren't his in his head— _ Why did he leave, why did  _ I  _ leave, it isn't safe, and we can't separate, I don't understand what's happening _ —and it all sort of bubbles up inside Martin. His knees go weak; he sinks backwards onto the ground. "Let me  _ back, _ " he says desperately, teeth digging into his palm. "This isn't  _ fair,  _ I'm not supposed to be here yet, I don't  _ want this. _ Let me go back.  _ Please,  _ let me come back,  _ please… _ "

This goes on for a moment before Martin realizes nobody is listening. There's no unfamiliar, involuntary thoughts, just him and his panicked pleas. Whatever is happening is over now; maybe the other him who is living his life back in 2016 woke up in the safe little life he had. He can't believe he ever thought Prentiss was the worst it would get, because clearly it has gotten so much worse—and oh  _ god,  _ how fucked up is that sentence? That he'd rather be living in a storage room at work with a boss that hates him and another boss who's evil and friends that are going to die, instead of being here? He never thought he would prefer that to anything, when he was in 2016. Before he knew. Now he knows, and he can't go back, and he's all alone here. He's all alone. 

Maybe this shouldn't be enough to break Martin, but pathetically enough. this is what does it. Tears well up in his eyes, and he jams his hand harder over his mouth to muffle his sobs. He is so sick of crying, but he's here, stuck in the future, in the apocalypse with a spooky fucking carousel and door women with pointy hands, and someone else is living his life in 2016, and his mum is missing and Tim and Sasha are dead and Jon  _ left him there,  _ and it's all too much. 

Tears spill hotly over the backs of Martin's hands and wrists and he lets them fall. Rocks back and forth in place just a bit, sobs some into his hands. He can't help it. He can't take it anymore. He wants to be home. He wants everyone to be alive and safe and whole and he  _ wants to be home.  _ He doesn't want to do this alone. 

"Let me go back," he whispers again. "I want to go back—Jon, too. Both of us. Please, please let us come back. We'll—we'll fix it. All of it.  _ Please. _ "

There's no answer. The 2018 Martin is gone from his head. This Martin isn't even sure that he expected an answer in the first place. 

\---

Martin isn't sure how long he sits there, on the ground crying near the carousel. Time clearly doesn't mean anything anyway. He looks up a few times, and the carousel looks closer each time, and there is never any sign of Jon. 

Jon has a large head start; Jon is probably miles away by now. Martin will never catch up with him at this rate. He keeps telling himself to  _ get up, _ to keep walking and go find Jon and save him, but he can't move. Can't do anything but look back down at the ruined ground and wipe at his eyes. He can't take this; he really can't. Can't even think of moving. 

And so he doesn't. Or at least he doesn't, until he hears a voice behind him. An unfamiliar voice, saying, "My favorite colleague! I must say, I thought you'd at least come and say  _ hello,  _ Martin."

Something like ice water falls down Martin's neck, and he stumbles to his feet and whirls. His first thought is  _ Helen,  _ even though it sounds nothing like her. And he's right, it's definitely not Helen. He finds a woman standing behind him while he  _ definitely  _ doesn't know—who definitely shouldn't be calling him her  _ favorite colleague.  _ There's something… off about her that Martin can't put his finger on, like Helen. Something… uneasy. Martin can't explain it, because he doesn't particularly trust Helen, either, but… this woman strikes him as  _ more  _ dangerous than Helen. No uncertainty here; no trusting her because she  _ might _ be able to help. Martin just doesn't trust her, full stop. That's it. 

"Who… who  _ are  _ you?" he says, panicked and annoyed and heart thudding with fear; all he can think is how  _ stupid _ it was of him to sit here all this time. Of  _ course  _ something evil and dangerous was going to sneak up on him, what the hell was he thinking? No wonder his life's gone all to shit, if he keeps making horrendous decisions like this. 

"You don't remember me, Martin?" says the woman, tilting her head to the side with hurt, and her voice strikes further ungodly fear in Martin: stomach twisting, palms clammy, spine all shivery. And then the woman smiles. Smiles…  _ grotesquely,  _ this is the whole way to describe it. She smiles and adds, " _ Dear _ old Sasha?"

_ Oh.  _ Martin staggers back a step or two, pressing his palms against his sides in some strange defensive motion, feeling himself going pale. Hearing Helen's words in his head again. "Y-you're not Sasha," he says immediately, his voice as firm as he can make it. (There's still a quiver there. Of course there is.)

The woman frowns, as if perturbed. "I'm the only Sasha  _ you _ remember," she says, almost petulant. 

"No, no, you're  _ not, _ " Martin says, fiercely as he can, because he recognizes the voice now, the one that came on the tape just after Sasha screamed. This isn't Sasha; this is the monster that killed her. "I remember her. The  _ real  _ Sasha. And you—you  _ killed _ her." His voice breaks a little on the word  _ killed,  _ and he finds himself fumbling uselessly at the pocket on his bag, looking for the knife he knows is in there from the first time they went out. Defensive measure. 

"I've taken her, though. Erased her from your memory. I remember." The woman, the thing, that…  _ Not-Sasha,  _ that's what Helen called her, Christ, Martin wants to be sick. The Not-Sasha is still smiling. "And you didn't even realize she was gone, Martin. I remember that, too. You gave me a huge hug and told me how  _ glad _ you were that I was all right. You had  _ no idea _ ."

Martin's going to throw up, he's sure of it. He stumbles back a few more steps, wanting to say,  _ I haven't done that yet,  _ wanting to say,  _ I won't  _ let _ you do that to her, or to any of us,  _ but he can't find the words. He presses a hand to his mouth, the hand that isn't fumbling at his bag. Says, "Wh-what do you want? What do you want from me?"

"Wanted to say hello to an old colleague. An old  _ friend,  _ even." Not-Sasha tips her head to the side, as if surveying, and it doesn't look anything like Sasha. Martin roots through his mind for the picture of Sasha, what she really looked like, and holds it there. Holds onto it tight. He doesn't want this different face to take over Sasha's face in his mind because it  _ isn't her.  _ His breathing's gotten rapid; maybe he is panicking, maybe. He doesn't want to be here. Why the hell did Jon  _ leave? _

"There's something different about you, Martin," Not-Sasha says, finally. "You're alone, for one thing. Lost your Archivist?" She smiles wider; her teeth look almost sharp in the strange light. Martin pictures those teeth bared over Sasha and he really does think he's going to throw up, he can practically feel it rising in his throat. He almost shakes his head before he stops himself; he doesn't owe this… this thing any explanation. He's still inching gradually backwards. 

"Leave you, did he?" says Not-Sasha. "My, my. And here I thought you and dear Jon had grown  _ close. _ "

"He didn't…  _ leave _ ," says Martin, and immediately regrets it. Shuts his mouth like a trap. 

"Where is he, then?"

"Shut up," Martin says, voice sharp now. In the bag, he closes his hand around the hilt of the knife. "Leave me alone. You've done enough."

"I disagree, Martin." The Not-Sasha steps closer, closer than she's gotten this whole time, and Martin yanks the knife out abruptly to point at her. She doesn't seem phased. Instead she just says, "It  _ is  _ unfortunate Jon isn't here. I was hoping to let you choose who I wore next."

"Get  _ back, _ " Martin hisses, head spinning, jabbing the knife at Not-Sasha. 

"You look  _ very _ comfortable, though, Martin, positively  _ roomy _ ." The Not-Sasha steps closer. 

"Get  _ away from me _ ," Martin says, trying not to stammer, holding the knife straight out and feeling incredibly stupid. What was he thinking, he's not a  _ hero _ , he couldn't save Sasha and Tim, and now he's not going to be able to save Jon. He's going to die out here, alone, and this  _ thing  _ is probably going to pretend to be him and kill Jon, too. Why is he so fucking stupid? How does he stand a chance against this thing when Sasha couldn't escape it? Wherever the other him is, he must be disgusted right now. Coming in and fucking up whatever life he had left, after he'd already fucked so much of the rest of it up. 

"You might want to run, Martin." The Not-Sasha smiles again, as if generous, and all Martin can think is that he hates calling this thing  _ anything  _ associated with Sasha, but he doesn't know what else to call her. He thinks about Sasha, about that last scream. About how he didn't save her. About how he can't save himself, and about how badly it will hurt. "I'll even give you a head start."

Martin is very aware that he should run. That it would be  _ smart,  _ even, to run. But something in him keeps his feet rooted to the ground. Something in him that feels like he owes it to Sasha. Something in him that feels like he shouldn't run away, again. 

So he doesn't run. He stares into the grinning face that looks nothing like Sasha, and he adjusts the knife awkwardly in his hand. And when the Not-Sasha moves forward, he moves, too, bringing the knife in his hand down in a long arc. Thinking only,  _ Sasha, I am so sorry,  _ thinking,  _ Jon, I had to follow you, I'm sorry I couldn't find you in time.  _

The blade hits somewhere in the shoulder, and the Not-Sasha hisses in pain, and Martin, back hitting the ground abruptly when she crashes into him, only finds himself thinking that it's really strange that this thing is bleeding red. Far as he can tell, it isn't human. 

Not-Sasha stares down at him, pinning him effectively enough to the ground, face contorted in pain and anger all at once, and for a split second, Martin just sees Sasha. And then he's shaking his head at that, hard, and reaching for the image of Sasha in his mind because this thing is  _ not her _ , but he can't find it. There's blood dripping down the knife and his fingers fumble around it as he pushes up, aiming for the heart or any other sort of organ that would help things along, but the Not-Sasha shoves it away, hand slipping on the blade, and there's more blood, and Martin's fingers slip, too. It all falls to the ground. 

"Resourceful, Martin," says the Not-Sasha. "I didn't think you had it in you."

Martin's jaw tightens at that, and he has to hold back the urge to say something angry, something about how sick he is of being underestimated, because it has to be true, isn't it, if he was stupid enough to do this and get caught, and not save Sasha or Tim or Jon, and oh god, he really is going to die. He fumbles for the knife again, hands scrabbling against the dried-out ground, but the Not-Sasha is lifting her hand and pressing it over Martin's face. She whispers, "It  _ will _ hurt, Martin. It hurt Sasha," and Martin's breath catches in his throat. He makes a punched-out sound, like a whimper or a cry of anger, and hopes futilely that she can't feel him crying. Her hand presses hotly against his forehead, and Martin scrabbles at her wrist and tries to hold back a scream, hopes it will not hurt too badly for too long. But the scream is building up, rising in his throat, and it's nearly broken through when Martin hears a familiar voice rising sharply with confusion over the burned-out landscape: " _ Martin? _ "

_ Jon,  _ Martin thinks, and he reels back drunkenly as Not-Sasha pulls her hand away. He tries to shout his name, but all that comes up is a rasp. "Get away from him!" Jon shouts, wild and panicked. Martin feels relief curl somewhere beneath his collarbone, and he begins to squirm away. 

" _ Archivist, _ " says Not-Sasha, sounding satisfied. She backs away from Martin, and he sucks in air like it is valuable, crawling away backwards, grabbing for the knife. "Wasn't sure you'd come." 

Martin's eyes jerk over to Jon, who is standing somewhere near the carousel, looking confused, distraught. "Martin—M-Martin, are you all right?" he stammers, eyes wide. 

Martin's head is spinning; he presses a hand to his forehead and gets out, "Jon, s-she killed Sasha. That's the Not-Sasha, she  _ killed Sasha _ ."

Jon's eyes go wide and he jerks forward as if on instinct, just as Martin's scrabbling hand finds the hilt of the knife. "You don't remember me, Archivist?" Not-Sasha hisses. "I'm surprised. We've had such memorable encounters."

Jon's stumbled a few steps forward, hands shaking and eyes wide, staring at the Not-Sasha with something between malice and confusion. "W-what were you doing to Martin?" he stammers. His eyes jerk towards Martin (trembling on the ground, clutching the knife in both hands now) and then back to Not-Sasha. 

"He seemed as good a candidate as any to wear next, though of course,  _ you  _ weren't here then. Inconsiderate, Archivist. After everything we've been through, don't you think you should have dropped in?" 

Jon sounds faintly sick next when he says, "You… were… you were trying to…  _ become  _ him…?" Martin nods, fingers slipping on the blood-smeared handle as he shifts forward onto his knees, watching the Not-Sasha. Not-Sasha is watching Jon. 

"Martin," Jon says then, and his voice is… different somehow. "Martin, get out of here."

"N-not a chance," Martin says, voice going hard, inching gradually forward. 

"You'd rather stay? I'd run, too, if I were you, Archivist," the Not-Sasha says coldly. 

"Martin,  _ go, _ " Jon says, voice rising and quivering. There's still a strange quality to it, one Martin can't quite put his finger on. Almost… static-y. Crackling with static.

Not-Sasha falters for a moment before hardening again. " _ Last chance _ , Archivist. Or I'll take Martin the same way I took the last one."

"You won't touch  _ any  _ of them," Jon growls, and his voice sounds  _ wrong.  _ Different but also almost… almost  _ powerful _ . Martin's head pounds, and he tightens his hand around the knife and moves forward, but the static rises high in his ears. He hears, faintly, a stammered apology. 

"You've caused so much pain, so much despair and suffering that you'll never really understand. You  _ killed Sasha _ ," says Jon, and Martin thinks he hears Jon's voice break under all of it. "And now you've tried to take Martin!"

"I'm sorry!" the Not-Sasha says, louder. She sounds like she's pleading. 

"You should  _ feel  _ it. You should understand how much pain you've caused people, the fear and agony you've inflicted on them." Jon's nearly shouting now, his voice screeching so loudly with static that it hurts. Martin presses both hands over his ears. "And you don't even realize that you're  _ never going to get the chance to do any of it.  _ You won't touch Sasha or Martin ever again."

" _ Please. _ "

"Because we're going to  _ stop _ you." Jon sounds like he's in pain or something, on the verge of tears or something. He lets out a punched-out gasp. And then the static crescendos to a final long creak before fizzling out. 

Martin gasps a little with the release and sags forward, lowering his hands. He blinks, opens his eyes and looks and finds the Not-Sasha slumped on the ground, staring up at Jon, horrified. Jon looks equally horrified, almost sick to his stomach. His eyes jerk towards Martin and stay there, and his voice is impressively steady when he says, "Martin, let's go."

Martin stumbles to his feet, grabbing for the knife where he's dropped it again. He doesn't take his eyes off the Not-Sasha when he says, "Jon… is it…"

"It's  _ fine _ ," says Jon. "She… she can't touch us." 

He sounds certain of this, so Martin looks towards Jon when he walks away. Not-Sasha isn't looking at them either. Jon meets his eyes, for a moment, as Martin passes, and then steps alongside him, and the two of them walk off—in the direction, Martin notes, of the safe house. They're going back 

Once they're a good distance away, once the carousel is just a dot in the distance, Jon stops, turns abruptly towards Martin. "Are you all right?" he says, voice somewhere between demanding and genuinely concerned. And afraid, maybe. "Are you hurt?" His hand is on Martin's jaw, suddenly, and he's tipping Martin's head towards his; he's staring right into Martin's eyes like he's checking him for a concussion or something. 

Something twists deep in Martin's stomach. He thinks about pulling away, just for a moment, but he can't, he doesn't really—it shouldn't mean anything except. Except it's been such a long time since anyone's touched him, longer since it's been  _ anything _ like this, and he's exhausted and grieving and there's a small part of him who really, really wants a hug. And then words are spilling out of his mouth, without his permission—"You  _ left, _ " he says, and he's stunned at how small his voice sounds. "You just… you just  _ left,  _ with nothing but that stupid  _ note… _ why would you  _ do  _ that?"

Something flashes in Jon's eyes (something like hurt, maybe, except that doesn't make sense), and he yanks his hand away from Martin so fast you'd think it burned. "I… I had to go," he says, voice rasping. "I… You  _ heard _ the tapes, Martin, Tim and Sasha died because of me. I didn't save them, and I thought I could… It isn't  _ safe  _ out here, which is  _ exactly  _ why I left you there, and I told you not to come after me, and you did anyways, and this is exactly  _ why. _ "

"What else was I supposed to  _ do, _ Jon?" Martin snaps. His eyes are burning like he might cry again, which is horrible because he isn't in the mood. "You just… you left me alone there in the middle of the apocalypse, and it  _ is  _ dangerous out here, so, what, I was just supposed to stand by while you got  _ yourself _ killed? O-or replaced by the Not-Sasha or something like that? I wasn't going to just…  _ let  _ you do that, so you can put that thought right out of your mind." He fixes Jon with his best stern glare, the only way he can think to communicate how annoyed and how scared and how unwilling to do this again he is, and he adds, "We're in this  _ together, _ Jon. There's a reason we both woke up here. Okay?"

Jon sighs. Shuts his eyes briefly and rubs his eyes and says, "I can't be hurt out here, so this is really the perfect place for me to be. And you clearly  _ can  _ be hurt…"

"Yeah, well, you stopped it, didn't you?" Martin says, weary. He tugs exhaustedly on the hem of his shirt. "You said she couldn't touch us. You  _ saved _ me, Jon."

"Yes, but I couldn't…" Jon's voice breaks, trails off for a moment. He's still got his hands over his face so Martin can't see, but when he speaks again, it sounds like he is crying. "I don't want anyone else to die, Martin," he says, choked. "I don't want  _ you _ to die. A-and I couldn't save them, so what makes you think I can protect you now?"

"You just did, Jon," says Martin. His voice is soft now; his hand shoots out without him thinking about it, and then it's on Jon's shoulder. Some attempt at being reassuring. He's so tired. "That's what."

Jon makes a choking sound, somewhere behind his hands. Martin squeezes Jon's shoulder a little, his own pathetic attempt to be reassuring. "We're in this together, yeah? We need to be so we can… we've  _ got _ to find a way back. So we can save Sasha and Tim."

Jon makes another sound like he's choking, lowers his hands and blinks hard. "You were… you were upset earlier," he says quietly. "With… the tapes. And I left you alone there." There's a brushy sort of feeling at Martin's wrist, and then Jon's hand is resting there, lightly. "I… I'm sorry."

Martin swallows hard against the lump in his throat. "Oh, don't… don't worry about that. It's just… it was…  _ Tim and Sasha, _ you know?" Jon nods shakily. He does. 

They're quiet for a moment, outside of the quiet sniffling. Martin keeps his hand on Jon's shoulder and Jon keeps his hand on Martin's wrist. It's a bit of an awkward position, but Martin doesn't mind. It's something. 

Jon clears his throat, finally, and says, "You… you never answered my question, Martin.  _ Are  _ you hurt?"

"Oh, uh, n-no. No, I'm not hurt. You, um, you came just in time." Martin laughs a little, even though it isn't funny. At the back of his head is still the feeling of being pinned to the ground like that, her hand burning on his forehead while he thought he was going to die like Sasha, and that thing would replace him and try to hurt Jon. He'd really thought… well, he hasn't felt like that since Prentiss. 

"Good," says Jon, and he really does sound like he means it. Martin takes a sharp breath and nods and takes his hand down. He doesn't mean to dislodge Jon's hand, but it slips away anyway. Martin twists at the hair tie around his wrist, so tight that the spot around it turns white. 

Jon breathes in deep and says, "Should we… should we go back?"

"Yeah, let's go," Martin says. "Sick of this place, anyway." He motions at the barren landscape emphatically. "We should… we should try to find a way home. Our real home, I mean, in 2016. If we can."

"Yes," Jon says. "Yes, we should."

Martin sighs, wipes his sweaty palm on his pant leg and looks back the way they came. Or… or the way he  _ thinks _ they've come. It's hard to tell when everything looks the same—the tower is at their back, but he isn't sure… He thinks, dimly, that last time he just followed Jon. "You… you know the way back, right?" he says, sheepishly laughing a little. "I don't… all of this is so confusing. Not sure I actually know how to get back."

"Yes, Martin," says Jon, sounding exhausted and sad and maybe even a little amused, all at once. "Yes, I know the way."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some dialogue in this chapter is lifted directly from 158 and 159; full credit to the creators for this dialogue, and thanks again to the transcripts, which i certainly used a lot for this fic. once again, i will take the opportunity to recommend you check out the excellent art for this fic on tumblr by @bisexualoftheblade, @eternallysadaboutjontim, @corvidtowers, and  
> @chromaticmelody. i'm making decent progress on the last chapter, and the fifth one should be up on tuesday! thank you again to everyone who is reading and commenting; i appreciate you all.

Martin and Jon sit on a couch that Martin's never seen before. They're on the same side of the couch, pressed together, Martin's arm looped around Jon's shoulders and Jon's face half-pressed into Martin's neck. It's more intimate than Martin is used to, but it doesn't feel wrong. It feels… right. Here—here, it feels right. 

An absent part of Martin knows that he is dreaming again. That he is just a passenger here, even though this is where he should be, where his hair is the right length and has less gray in it, and he's less scarred, and the world is normal outside, and he's safe, and all the same is true for Jon. Part of him wonders if he should try to say anything—try to take charge, and change things. But he just sits back. Aside from the fact that he suspects the other Martin—the Martin whose life he is living now—wants the same thing he does, part of him just wants to sit back and watch. Wants to see what he can learn. 

"Never seen this flat before," the other Martin says. Martin doesn't resist the words as they come out of his mouth. He pauses for a moment before adding, "I like it," rubbing his thumb over Jon's arm. 

Jon snorts, brushing his nose against Martin's neck in a way that makes him shiver all over. "I know that's you making fun of me. Don't think I don't know that."

"No, no, seriously! I like it, I do," the other Martin protests, laughing a little as he squirms away from where Jon pokes him in the side. "It's… nice. Reminds me of the you I used to know." __

"Makes you think of the version of me that was awful to you?" There's a layer of teasing in Jon's (the other Jon's) voice, but not enough to mask the darker undercurrent. He sounds… upset. Ashamed. Apologetic. Martin doesn't know. 

"Hey, no, hey. Jon, come on." Martin kisses him on the forehead, easily, like it's the most natural thing in the world. "We've talked about this."

"I know, I know. It's just…" Jon sighs. "It's hard  _ not _ to think about it, being back here. Remembering what I was doing now." 

"I know." Martin sighs. "Is it… is it weird to say that I don't  _ want _ to leave here? Right now, that I want to stay? I mean, it's not like I missed being homeless and hiding from a worm woman, but…"

"No, I know what you mean. I do. I… I don't want to leave, either." Jon lifts his head, bumps his forehead against Martin's and leaves it there. The other Martin closes his eyes. "You… you know you can stay with me, right? Here?"

" _ Obviously, _ " Martin says, his voice tinged with teasing sarcasm, and the other Jon laughs. Martin brushes his nose against Jon's and adds, quieter, "I'm not leaving  _ you, _ you know."

"You, either," says Jon, so warmly that it actually aches in Martin's chest. The real Martin. Or maybe the other Martin, too. (It's all so mixed up that Martin can't tell anymore.) 

The other Jon finds his hand and squeezes it hard. Martin squeezes back. "We've got to try to change things," he says. "We… we  _ have _ to try to save them. All of them."

Jon sighs, and leans his face into the crook of Martin's shoulder. "We do. We have to. I… I wish we'd gotten back earlier. I wish I could've kept all of you from ever being trapped here."

" _ I _ don't," Martin says fiercely. "Not if it meant me not meeting you. Or leaving you alone here. We're in this together, remember? All the way." And it is so much like what the real Martin—the 2016 Martin, with no control in this body that belongs to him—had said before, to Jon—or later, he guesses—that for a minute, Martin wonders if he is in the driver's seat again. 

Martin wakes up back on the couch, his head against Jon's thigh. For a moment, it isn't startling—Martin is still stuck in the moment of being in Jon's flat on Jon's couch with Jon curled into him like an electric blanket—but then he realizes and sits up so fast his head almost collides with Jon's. Jon, for his part, looks a little embarrassed, face flushing as their eyes meet. "You, er… you fell asleep, and you… rolled over here," he says awkwardly. "And I… didn't feel I should move you, so…"

"It's fine. Really, it's…" Martin clears his throat. "I-I'm sorry I fell asleep on top of you," he adds, more cheerfully than the situation deserves, maybe. It's nice to have a conversation that isn't crying or snapping at each other. (And a part of him is still stuck in that dream, the strangeness of it. The them that look like this speaking with the face and voice of the them that they are now. And yes, all the terminology confusion is starting to make Martin's head hurt.) 

Jon's face is still a little red; he nods, eyes on the tape recorder in his hands. "Don't worry about it."

Martin tries a different approach. "Eventually we'll fall asleep in the bed, right?" he jokes. It's almost ridiculous how many times he's slept on this couch instead of the perfectly good bed upstairs. (The bed that the other them share.  _ Together. _ ) 

Jon snorts a little. "Yes, it's… you're the only one that's used it, right? I… I don't think I've slept since I've been here." Something comes over his face, something like confusion, or distress. 

Martin's chest cinches in sympathy. He pushes his hair back and clears his throat. He wonders, absently, if the other Martin feels uncomfortable with him being here, walking around in this body that isn't here yet. But it isn't like he's—body-swapped, or something. This is  _ his  _ body, this is him, just… not  _ yet. _ And maybe he should be jealous of the other Martin, walking around in  _ his  _ body in 2016, but… he can't. Not quite. It's still him, and the other him has been there before. The other him wants to fix this, too. The other him is… staying in Jon's flat, and hugging Tim and Sasha, who are  _ alive,  _ and talking about changing the past. The other him is holding Jon like they are… No. Martin scrubs his hands over his face. "I don't… know if sleeping is the best, if that makes you feel better," he offers. "I've been having… strange dreams."

Something flashes in Jon's eyes and he turns to look at Martin. "Like what?"

Martin looks down at his hands, these unfamiliar hands, and takes a deep breath. "You know how… we're here, and we woke up here, even though this isn't who we are now?" he asks, and Jon nods. "I think…" Martin starts, then stops. It sounds insane, even to him. But what part of this  _ isn't  _ insane? "I think the other us—the ones from, uh, here… I think they're there. In 2016." 

He clears his throat, awkwardly, and continues: "I… when I've fallen asleep, it's… it's like I'm back where I'm supposed to be. Except I don't have any control over things, and it's like it isn't me talking. A-and there was this moment, when I was looking for you, when I felt like… someone else was inside  _ me,  _ trying to get out. Asking questions about where I was. And just now, when I was asleep, I think I… I saw  _ us _ . And we were talking about things that hadn't happened yet. Jon, I…" Martin takes a sharp breath, cuts himself off. "I think when we got here, they went there. I think the future versions of us—or the… present us, maybe? I think they're there."

Something flashes in Jon's eyes, something almost… green. "They are," he says, in the same tone that he said the stuff he's said before, that Martin didn't know how he could know. Like he's certain, like there's no question.

Martin doesn't say anything to that. He isn't sure what  _ to  _ say, or what to think. Aside from hoping that the them from the past can fix this all. 

Jon clears his throat, his eyes dark again, fidgets with the tape player again. "This has been, uh, playing," he says awkwardly. "While you've been asleep. More… things we don't remember. I think it might have things it wants us to know still."

Martin shifts and leans forward a bit, studying the tape player, trying to see anything different about it, but it's just a tape recorder. Just the tape recorder that showed them how Sasha and Tim died. He takes a sharp breath and says, "Like what?"

"Well," says Jon, setting the player on the coffee table. The air around him is almost… embarrassed. Martin doesn't know how else to describe it. "I… I think I know what Tim didn't forgive me for. Or… part of it."

"What's that?" Martin says, genuinely curious. He was shocked to hear Tim's voice sounding like that on that tape; he doesn't want to know what happened to Tim to make him sound like that. And his last words to Jon… Tim and Jon are  _ friends _ . Martin's seen them, they've been friends since back in Research, and clearly there's a reason Jon requested Tim along with Sasha down in the Archives. If Martin would've expected to see anyone in those pictures with Jon, smiling and being easily affectionate like that, it would've been Tim or Sasha. They're all  _ friends,  _ the three of them, closer than Martin is to any of them, even past all of Jon's prickliness, and Martin just… doesn't  _ understand _ . 

"Well." Jon's face is flushed. He clears his throat. "Apparently… I suspected you and Tim of murder. Of… murdering Gertrude Robinson."

Martin blinks in surprise at that. "What?" He thought—well, everyone figured Gertrude Robinson was dead, but…  _ murdered?  _

"Yes, well, I suppose her… body was found. And I felt like you or Tim must have done it." Jon clears his throat again. "Sasha was already gone then. And I, er. I followed Tim home. I watched his house. And took pictures. And I… snooped through your things. I  _ shouted _ at you."

Martin's startled at the way Jon's said that, like it's something so horrible. Sure, he hates to be shouted at—who doesn't?—and Jon's never technically  _ shouted  _ before, but… "Oh, um, well you must have had your reasons, right?" he offers, going for levity. And then, just because it seems necessary: "I didn't murder her. Just so you know." Unless that's something that happened  _ after _ he left the past. But that would mean Gertrude is still puttering around somewhere, and Martin doubts this is the case.

Jon shoots Martin a look that finally feels familiar: something of disapproval and  _ that's-obvious-Martin.  _ Although it doesn't usually have this edge of… lightness to it. (Familiarity, joking, maybe even something like… fondness.) " _ Obviously _ not, Martin. I just… I'm sorry I shouted."

"Oh." Martin swallows hard, poking a leg of the coffee table with his foot. "Well, I don't remember that. Or, well, you haven't done it yet."

"I  _ know _ . Just… I'm  _ sorry,  _ Martin." Martin looks back at Jon, who's looking at him with some deep emotion in his eyes. And then he looks away and adds, "All right?"

Martin swallows hard. "All right," he says. "I… I'm sorry, too. For everything I said. Before we met Helen."

Jon laughs sharply. "Don't be sorry. I deserved it."

"It wasn't all true, though. And besides that, I was… I was pushing you. To…  _ Know,  _ or whatever it is you've been doing. And you didn't want to, and I shouldn't have done that, and—and I'm  _ sorry. _ "

"Okay, okay, Martin. It's… it's fine." Jon's voice is shockingly gentle there. Almost like in the dreams. Martin swallows hard again and looks back at Jon. Jon says, "Maybe… we call a truce, then? Knock it off with the apologies?"

"Sure. That sounds good." Martin smiles a little without even knowing why, just for a moment. He looks back at the tape recorder and then back at Jon. "Did it… did it play anything else?"

"Not much. Some statements. I… I think I've figured out who Daisy and Basira are. I heard their statements. I… think Basira and I were friends. Or…  _ are _ friends. I suppose. We met when she was investigating Gertrude's murder. She… thought  _ I  _ had done it." 

"They're police, then?" Martin asks. 

"Yes, it sounds like that. I'm still not sure how they… got involved in all this, outside of Gertrude's murder. And… another murder that they thought I committed." Jon's voice sounds choked now. "Elias framed me, I think. I… heard it."

"Wait, Elias  _ murdered  _ someone?" Martin says incredulously, and immediately grimaces at how ridiculous that sounds. Elias (who is also Jonah Magnus) ended the fucking  _ world; _ obviously he has no qualms about murder. But he still can't help but picture his dull, straight-laced boss being  _ this _ ; he hasn't seen that version of Elias yet, not explicitly. The most he's seen in that vein is Elias acting like he and Jon are being unreasonable about the worms. (And the creepy feeling he got when he was hired. Can't forget that. But there's still a big leap between  _ creepy  _ and  _ murderer. _ ) 

"Jurgen Leitner, apparently. Who has been living under the Institute in some tunnels. Which we apparently have," says Jon, dryly, and maybe a little exhaustedly.

Martin blinks in surprise at that. "That's, uh," he says. "That's… surprising."

"Yes, it certainly is." Jon runs a hand over his mouth, looking tired. "I don't… I think there's a lot more we don't know. I think there's more we're going to have to hear." 

"Like the tapes of Tim and Sasha," Martin says quietly. He looks at the tape player where it's sitting quietly on the coffee table. "And you said it's just… been playing on its own?"

"Yes, I was just… I was sitting here skimming through the statements, and it switched on. I didn't do anything to set it off, far as I can tell," says Jon. "I don't know how… oh." 

The player clicks on in the middle of his sentence, and Elias begins talking. It sounds like he's called 999. Jon and Martin stare at it for a moment in silence, dumbfounded, before Martin offers, "Well, that's convenient timing for you."

"Yes, it is," Jon says dryly. "I… I guess we should listen."

"I guess we should," says Martin. So they sit there in silence and listen as Elias delves into reading a letter written to Jonah Magnus (to  _ him, _ Martin realizes) nearly two centuries ago. 

\---

The tapes play for what feels like hours; Martin can't tell. One clicks off and another clicks on, like clockwork. And gradually, gradually, they begin to get a picture of what's happened in the past two years. 

Maybe this shouldn't be a surprise to Martin, but it's not a happy picture. 

Jon has one of Martin's notebooks—the grey one, flipped past Martin's entries and the tic-tac-toe games—where he seems to be trying to establish a timeline. It is helpful. Martin peers over at it during moments where the tapes lag, mostly during the statements, and it seems consistent enough, even if it is confusing. (Not like the tapes should give them anything in order, out of convenience or anything.)

They listen to the tapes of the Prentiss attack, the  _ full  _ attack, that explains how Sasha got into Artifact Storage in the first place. They listen to the statement of Helen Richardson ( _ Helen from outside,  _ Martin mouths to Jon as soon as she starts talking, and Jon nods) and the subsequent appearance by Sasha's Michael. They listen to statements given by Basira, by Melanie King, by Jon's ex, Georgie (that one makes Jon go pale with astonishment), by  _ Tim.  _ By Jon, even, telling the story of the Leitner he found when he was a child. (It's Jon's voice, coming out of the tape, and Martin can tell it's real; Jon goes even paler listening to it. After a few minutes, Martin offers to go—"I can, uh, give you some privacy, I don't have to, uh…"—but Jon tells him to stay. Says, "If I… if I…  _ recorded  _ this, I must have wanted someone to hear it." And so Martin stays, horror and sympathy blooming somewhere in the pit of his chest.)

Daisy, Daisy who owns the safehouse, tries to kill Elias. Daisy tries to kill  _ Jon.  _ Jon goes into the coffin from the Joshua Gillespie statement and brings her out. Elias hires Melanie King. Elias forces Basira to work there as well. Tim can't quit. Elias tells them that they can't quit, and that they will die if anything happens to him or the Archive. Jon goes to America and talks with the ghost of Gerard Keay. Gerard Keay fills them in on what these fears they keep hearing mentioned are. 

That's honestly the most helpful tape, the Gerard Keay one; Jon's scribbling down notes the whole time. Martin doesn't understand how Jon has the wherewithal to take notes at  _ all;  _ he hasn't moved in many long minutes. He's just sitting overwhelmed on the couch, stiff and stunned, unable to do much except  _ listen.  _ Sometimes he has to pause and wipe his eyes. His eyes have been stinging almost constantly with pent-up tears and exhaustion, and this is all so hard to hear.

Jon and Tim and Basira and Daisy go to stop the Unknowing. (Martin stays back, for reasons he doesn't entirely get to hear, but he assumes it has something to do with Elias being arrested at the hospital.) Tim dies. Jon dies, and doesn't die, and Martin visits him at the hospital, but it isn't Martin who's there when he wakes up. Martin makes a deal with someone called Peter Lukas—Martin recognizes the name, from the statement that started the apocalypse; Peter Lukas and his deal is the reason Martin marked Jon. Jon finds a way out. Jon asks Martin to come away with him, and Martin says no. Martin says  _ no.  _

Martin goes with Peter Lukas. Martin is told he probably won't be coming back. Martin doesn't kill Elias who is Jonah Magnus (and Martin is halfway shouting in his mind, at this other version of him, telling him to do it, and then the other half is reminding him of Elias's smug tone when he'd said,  _ And it would not be a pleasant death _ ). Then Martin is gone. 

And then Jon comes after him. He asks where Martin is.  _ Peter Lukas has cast him into the Lonely,  _ Elias says,  _ and with every passing moment he gets further away from you.  _ Martin flinches, looking down at the ground. Very deliberately not looking at Jon, the real Jon. He remembers the dream in the storage room, Jon hugging the other him, saying,  _ I thought I lost you.  _ But that wasn't this Jon. That wasn't this version of them at all. 

The Jon on the tape—Martin doesn't know which Jon this is, but the Jon on the tape—goes after Martin. He doesn't hesitate for a second. He says he is scared, but he goes anyway. The tape erupts in static, and then ends, and then clicks over to another one. Something must still have more to tell them. Martin keeps listening and he doesn't look at Jon. There shouldn't be suspense here because he knows that they  _ had _ to have made it out, because here they are. And they're together here and they're writing each other cute little notes and sharing a bed and taking photos and somewhere in the past, Jon is telling him he can stay at his flat. And now he's listening to Jon following him into the Lonely. He can hear Jon breathing beside him now, sharp, brief breaths; he's not writing notes in the notebook anymore. They wait, watching the tape, until the sound breaks through the static. It's Jon's voice, shouting Martin's name. 

They listen to Jon search for Martin in the Lonely. Listen to Peter Lukas taunt Jon. Listen to Jon find Martin, listen to Martin walk away. Martin's voice sounds… wrong, and not in the way where Martin recoiled when he first woke up and heard himself speak. Not like he's aged. He sounds… hollow. Sad. The sound of this other him's voice makes Martin's stomach twist, makes him want to push the recorder away and stop listening, but he thinks he might need to hear this. He keeps listening, hears Jon try to talk him into leaving, hears himself refuse. Hears himself say,  _ I really loved you, you know?  _ and Martin has to hold back a gasp at that one. Lets his face fall in his hands and presses his fingers too hard against his eyes. 

The Martin on the tape disappears, and for a moment, Martin thinks this is it, that he's gone and he's not coming back, even though he knows it can't end this way. Everything this version of Martin said felt wrong, but in a strange way, it also felt right.  _ Nothing hurts here. This is where I should be.  _ He's been alone for so much of his life that it feels like a default sometimes, even if it isn't what he wants. To the point where it makes sense that he'd end up in a horrible lonely wasteland, that he wouldn't want to follow Jon out. It makes sense that this would be the end. 

But the tape doesn't end there. It keeps going. Peter Lukas comes back and starts taunting Jon again, and for a second, the other Jon's voice goes hollow. Like he is going to be trapped there, too. He says that he's done this to Martin as much as Lukas has. He says that Tim and Sasha are dead, Basira and Daisy might be dead, Georgie and Melanie have left—and Jon takes several more sharp breaths at all this, several pained breaths, and Martin takes his hands away from his face and looks towards Jon, even though he doesn't want to, because he needs to make sure Jon is okay. The real Jon has horror and grief scrubbed all over his face when Martin looks, staring at the recorder, but it softens when Martin looks at him, like he's  _ relieved _ . "Are… are you all right?"

Martin swallows hard against the lump in his throat, and over the wave of disbelief, and he says, "Am I… Jon, are  _ you  _ all right?"

"I'm…" Jon breaks it off, swallowing hard, rubs a hand over his face. "We… we should keep listening, I think. If you're all right."

The Jon on the tape is talking again, his voice harder and more solid. Martin nods, a little shaky, because he still wants to hear how it ends. Jon's knee bumps against his as Martin turns towards the recorder again. It's probably an accident, but maybe it's not. 

Jon takes Peter Lukas's statement. Martin hears it without really absorbing any of it, because he's replaying his own words over and over again in his mind.  _ I really loved you, you know?  _ It seems so inauthentic coming out of his own mouth. Sure, he's had a bit of a crush on Jon for a while, but— _ love?  _ He wouldn't have believed it, when he first woke up here, and he wouldn't believe it now, except. Except for the dreams, of the 2018 them. Except for the notes. Except for the tapes and the fleeting memories and the pictures and the comment Helen made about a  _ lover's spat… _ Except that Jon followed him into the Lonely. Everything that's happened since they got here should be enough to make Martin believe it. His knee is warm in the spot where Jon's knee bumped against it. 

Martin starts paying attention again when Peter Lukas starts screaming and the static rises. It sounds like Jon kills him, and maybe Martin should be horrified by that, but considering that (according to Elias) Peter Lukas helped end the world, he can't bring himself to care. (Jon looks a little horrified; Martin would reassure him, but he's not sure there's any point. It's got to be jarring to hear yourself murder someone, even if it was deserved. Martin doesn't know if anything he'd say could make that better.)

And then… and then Jon finds him again.  _ His only wish was to die alone, _ says the Martin on the tape, still sounding hollow, and Martin can't help but flinch at that. He doesn't like that sound. He doesn't want his voice to sound like that. 

_ Tough _ , says the tape-Jon, his voice hard.  _ Now—listen to me, Martin. Listen. _

_ Hello, Jon,  _ the tape-Martin says. 

_Listen, I know you_ think _you want to be here, I know you think it’s safer, and well—well, maybe it is,_ says Jon, and the emotion in his voice makes Martin's chest ache, makes him stare down at his shoes. _But we need you,_ Jon continues. And then: I _need you._

Tears well unexpectedly in Martin's eyes and he swipes them away quickly, hoping the real Jon hasn't noticed. The him on tape is still talking, saying,  _ Everyone’s alone, but we all survive. _ It's true. But Martin doesn't want it to be.

_ I don’t just want to  _ survive _!  _ says the Jon on tape, his voice pitching in frustration. The Jon beside Martin is quiet, and Martin cannot look at him. The Martin on tape says he's sorry. 

Jon says,  _ Martin. Martin, look at me. Look at me and tell me what you see. _

_ I see…  _ Martin says, and his voice is changing. Shaking a little.  _ I see you, Jon.  _ He laughs a little, and the real Martin wipes away tears again. The voice almost sounds like him again.  _ I  _ see  _ you.  _

_ Martin,  _ says the Jon on tape, and then they're embracing. Or it sounds like they're embracing. Martin doesn't think he's ever hugged Jon— _ his  _ Jon. (The other him clearly has, it happened in the storage room.) They aren't even  _ friends,  _ except that they are—they're here, together, and Jon left him alone here so he wouldn't die, and they came back together, and Jon came into the Lonely for him, and they came to Scotland together, and Martin said he wouldn't leave him. And he hasn't, and he  _ won't, _ not again. 

_ I was on my own. I was all on my own,  _ the Martin on tape says. 

_ Not anymore,  _ says the Jon on tape, in a way that Martin can only describe as warm.  _ Come on. Let's go home.  _

_ How?  _ says Martin. 

_ Don't worry. I know the way.  _

The tape is done then. It whirs emptily for a moment before clicking off; neither of them say anything else. And neither of them say anything in person, either. 

Martin has to swipe at his eyes a couple more times before he can look back at Jon. Jon is staring down at his hands again, fingers spread, but he looks up when Martin moves, and actually smiles. A strained, awkward smile, sure, that disappears fast, but still a smile. And then it's gone and he looks halfway normal again—just stunned, the way Martin feels. "Well, that," Martin starts, without finishing. "That was…"

"Yes," Jon says quietly. "I… I think I know how we got here." 

"Y'mean we came after… that?" Martin says, motioning uselessly at the recorder. (Pointlessly, too, because they've heard about a hundred things in the last few hours.) 

"Yes. We did," says Jon. "And… some other things we didn't hear, I think. It's… a lot." 

"Yeah," says Martin. 

Jon's quiet for a minute, fingers knitting together in his lap. And then he takes a deep breath and he's speaking again. "Martin, I… I don't know if I've said anything, but I'm… I'm glad you're here with me."

Martin's breath gets caught in his throat; he says nothing. Jon continues, awkwardly, but without missing a beat: "I… I don't know what I would've done if I was here alone, and I… I'm just… I'm glad we came back here together." 

"Oh," Martin says quietly. There's this odd sort of warmth in his chest, and now he can't look away from Jon. "Oh, uh… I am, too. Glad we're here together, I mean. I don't… that I'm here with you. I'm glad I'm here with you."

The left side of Jon's mouth twitches, like he is going to smile again, and he nods. The warmth spreads; Martin looks back down, unsure of what to say next. Jon seems to be unsure, too, because he doesn't say anything, either. But Martin can't bring himself to mind. 

After a few moments, Jon speaks again, clearing his throat. "I… I suppose it's out of things to tell us?" he says, reaching across to the coffee table and poking at the silent recorder. "Unless… it did stop before, before this. So there might be… more…" 

He seems at a loss for words after that. Martin looks back at the silent tape recorder, waiting to see if it will start playing again, but it stays quiet. "That's okay," he says, agreeably as he can, and he offers Jon a small smile. Just a small one. But it's something. "I can wait."

\---

Martin falls asleep while they're waiting.  _ Again.  _ It's getting sort of ridiculous. He'd complain, except he really is tired, and this time he doesn't dream, so it really does feel like he's getting rest. Nice change of pace, far as things go.

Jon's actually asleep, for the first time since they've been here, when Martin wakes up—minutes or hours later, he couldn't say. They're both still on the couch, which is getting slightly  _ ridiculous,  _ neither of them are old no matter how they might look but Martin's back is  _ still _ screaming in protest. Why sleep on the couch when there's a perfectly good bed? It could be because they don't want to have the awkward discussion about sharing the bed, but, well… Jon is slumped over on Martin's side of the couch right now, head against Martin's shoulder, mouth hanging open. One of them moved while they were asleep, but it can't be Martin, because Martin remembers sitting down here. So it must've been Jon. 

Martin shuts his eyes, briefly, rubs at his throat and tries not to think about the tape of the Lonely.  _ I came for you. I thought you might be lost. I really loved you, you know? I need you.  _ It keeps playing in his head. Like the glimpses he's seen of—of the other them, in the photos and the dreams and the ones who have been booted back to 2016. But this time, it felt real. Like something that happened to  _ him.  _ It felt like…  _ his  _ Jon saying these things, even though it really isn't. That tape was still of the versions of themselves they haven't met yet. He isn't sure why it felt like  _ them  _ on that tape, at all, but it did, it just did.

Jon's warm where he's leaned into Martin, one arm thrown haphazardly over Martin's legs, elbow jabbing into his thigh. His fingers twitch in his sleep. He mumbles something into Martin's shirt that sounds almost like  _ Tim  _ and  _ I'm so sorry.  _ Martin's throat closes up, and he's thinking about a different tape now. There's so many things they've missed. 

Martin can't go back to sleep, even though he tries. And it's probably selfish, but he can't bring himself to move Jon. Every time he thinks he should—thinks how Jon would probably hate this if he was awake—he remembers how Jon hasn't slept since they've gotten here and how moving him will probably wake him up. And how Jon didn't move Martin when  _ he'd  _ rolled over and fell asleep on top of Jon's leg. So he ends up just staying, legs nearly falling asleep from the position he's in, and lets Jon rest. Tries not to focus on Jon's breathing, or replay the tapes over and over again in his head. But obviously all of that is easier said than done. 

Anyways, Martin doesn't move for a long while, until he hears it. He hears it faint, and barely there, but he  _ does  _ hear it. The creaking of floorboards above his head. A door opening and closing. The sound of someone moving around upstairs. 

Martin's breath catches in his throat. His hand closes around Jon's wrist in a panicked instinct; his mouth moves around the words,  _ Jon, someone's upstairs,  _ but nothing comes out. He doesn't understand  _ who  _ could be upstairs, when they're the only ones  _ here.  _ Helen? Not-Sasha? He doesn't like either option very much, although he'd definitely prefer Helen. Elias, maybe, come to take revenge or something? Or… Basira? Melanie, Georgie? He doesn't know how they'd have gotten here, but they're the only ones he can think of left who aren't dead. (He doesn't even know them, really, aside from what he  _ just _ heard on the tapes, but he still wants it to be them, wants it to be anyone who won't hurt them. Anyone who might be a friend.)

More footsteps, and Martin's heart stutters in his chest. He needs to get up there, before they come down. He should wake Jon up, but… what if Jon makes noise and alerts the people upstairs to the fact that they're upstairs? What if it's all in Martin's imagination and he scares Jon for nothing? Better to let Jon sleep. There's only one way up or down the stairs, and if Martin gets up there before they get down… he can protect Jon. He's  _ got _ to protect Jon. 

Martin moves quietly, quietly as he can, to the bag and gets the knife out. And then he goes to the stairs. The stairs creak under his feet, the whole way up, and Martin winces every time, but it doesn't seem to cause anything bad. No one comes running towards the stairs from the upper floor, and Jon doesn't wake up. So Martin keeps going, knife clutched in his hand at the ready, until he reaches the top. 

The hallway is empty, no one there, and the door to the bedroom is hanging open. Martin can't remember if they left it open or not. But he hears the creaking floorboards again, and that confirms it. He moves towards the bedroom and says in a low, stern voice, "Whoever's in there had better come out  _ now _ and explain themselves!" He's not in the mood for any more of this; he doesn't know if he can take one other surprise, or attack, or any of it.

Footsteps head towards the door before someone speaks. A familiar, questioning voice, saying, "Martin?" And then the person steps out of the room. 

Martin's breath catches automatically. The person standing in front of him is Sasha. It's  _ Sasha,  _ not the Not-Sasha—the Sasha he remembers. Except she doesn't look the same, not really. Her hair is shorter, and her glasses have a crack running through one lens, and she's got scars all up and down her arms and her face—the same little round scars Jon has. And a few more scars Martin's sure she didn't have before: a patch that looks like a burn scar on one arm, a nick along her jawline. But she looks  _ okay _ —not like she's dead, or even like she's been recently hurt. The scars are healed over, not recent. She's not muddy or mussed up like Martin and Jon are. It looks like… Martin swallows hard. Like when he first woke up here and saw Jon. 

"Sasha?" he croaks, unable to say anything else. 

"Everything okay, Martin?" Sasha pushes her sleeves up, looking concerned. "Where's Jon? Wh-why do you have a  _ knife?  _ Did something happen?"

Martin's head is spinning. He realizes he's still pointing the knife at Sasha, and so he lowers it. "Jon's downstairs," he says faintly. "Asleep. I-I thought I heard something…"

"Heard what?" Sasha looks over her shoulder, like something is going to be hovering behind her. 

"... Footsteps." Martin is thinking screw letting Jon sleep, he should go and wake him up because Jon will want to see this. And then he's wondering if running off will make this Sasha disappear. (Maybe she is a ghost? Martin wouldn't be shocked, but the fact that she has the same scars as Jon…) And  _ then  _ he is wondering if this is something (the Not-Sasha or something else)  _ pretending _ to be Sasha, something that wants to manipulate or kill them… She looks like how he remembers Sasha looking, she has Sasha's face, and the Not-Sasha had looked different, definitely different. But… his memories could have been changed. This could all be a trick, couldn't it? A sneaky maneuver where they're both manipulated and Martin forgets his friend's face. His breathing goes shaky and shallow, and he swallows back a cry in his throat.

Sasha looks confused, still; she says, "Do you think you could've just been hearing me and Tim?" 

Martin's mouth hangs open for a moment, speechless. "T-Tim?" he says faintly. 

"Giant eye is  _ still _ in the sky, if anyone's wondering," says Tim's voice from somewhere in the bedroom. A moment later, he appears in the doorway, leaning on Sasha's shoulder and making a face at Martin. "Where's Jon?" 

Martin's eyes are glued to their faces, drinking it all in. Tim is scarred, too, the same round ones as Jon's and Sasha's, and his hair is actually shorter, too. His expression is different than the ones Martin is used to: sadder, more solemn. But he's here, and he's alive, and Martin realizes that he hasn't seen Tim since he found out Tim was dead. Not in the dreams or anything like that; he only saw Sasha after the tapes. "Jesus  _ Christ, _ " Martin says, taking a few steps back. How is this—how the hell are they  _ here?  _

Tim tips his head towards Martin with concern, reaches out and brushes a hand over Martin's arm. "Everything okay, Martin? You look… sort of awful, actually. Is that  _ mud? _ "

"Not that we're really ones to talk," Sasha says dryly, poking him in the shoulder.

"Right, of course."

Martin tries, "You can't… y-you aren't…" _You're dead,_ is what he's trying to say, but he can't get it out. He doesn't _want_ to get it out, like saying it will make it true, and because it so obviously _isn't_ true; they're standing right _here_. He thinks about time travel and his promise to Sasha in one of the dreams and Jon's burning words to Not-Sasha— _You're_ _never going to get the chance to do any of it._ His throat closes up. "I-I need to get Jon," he croaks. 

"Is… is Jon all right?" Sasha says, tone thick with worry. 

"You really do look awful, Martin. You look like you've seen a ghost," Tim says. 

_ I have.  _ "Just—just wait here, I've got to go get him, he'll want to see this," Martin stammers out. "He'll… be able to explain… J-just wait here and I'll be right back." Tim and Sasha are still staring at him like he's insane, and Martin has a sudden wild urge to—he doesn't know, physically reassure them, or something. His hands move to grab their hands or pat their wrists or something supremely awkward like that. But it doesn't work; he feels nothing. His fingertips go to brush Sasha's and Tim's hands and they touch nothing—they  _ pass through the edge. _ As if Sasha and Tim aren't really there, like they're just projections, or—or ghosts. 

Martin's breath catches, again, and he looks up so fast his neck aches, expecting to see these unfamiliar versions of his friends looking  _ even more  _ confused. But he doesn't see anything. Nothing but bare wall, and an open door, and the shape of the bed behind it. They  _ aren't there.  _ Like Tim and Sasha have just… vanished into thin air. 

"Oh, god," Martin whispers, looking up and down the hall and into the bedroom frantically like they've just…  _ stepped away  _ or something. "Oh,  _ Christ,  _ that's… Tim? Sasha?" He pushes the door open and steps into the bedroom, checks the bathroom, the linen closet, the whole hallway, thinking that this  _ has  _ to be impossible, because they both looked so  _ different _ , and Tim  _ touched him,  _ touched his arm, Martin  _ felt it.  _ "Tim! Sasha!" he calls, and he hears nothing. They're gone. Martin scrubs a hand over his face, closes and opens his eyes, and they're really, really gone. 

Downstairs, he hears Jon's uncertain voice calling, "Martin?" and Martin about breaks his neck trying to get downstairs. He finds Jon sitting halfway up on the couch, blinking blearily and rubbing the back of his neck. "Martin?" he says again, sleepily. "Something's happened, hasn't it?" 

Martin collapses on the other side of the couch, knee bumping against Jon's again. "I-I saw Tim and Sasha upstairs," he says in an exhale. "They were up there… they came out of the bedroom and acted like nothing was wrong. They h-had the little scars, like you—the worm scars, I guess—and they were  _ alive,  _ Jon. I swear, they were  _ alive.  _ I felt it! Tim  _ touched  _ me, on the arm, t-they weren't… and I was going to come and get you, and I tried to touch  _ them,  _ and my hand went right through. Like they were… ghosts or something. And then they just  _ vanished.  _ I don't… I don't know where they've  _ gone,  _ I don't understand what happened."

Jon's eyes flash green again. "Things are changing, Martin," he says, in the voice Martin has learned to trust in their time here. "We've managed to change things enough that we're feeling the reverberations of that here."

Martin presses a hand to his forehead, overwhelmed. "So… so there's a version of things, now, where Sasha and Tim don't die? Where they come here with us?"

"I don't know," Jon says, sounding normal now. "I don't… it's like there's roadblocks, for some of these things, and I can't see it all. I think when we… shifted… whatever power I have in 2018 got scrambled. I don't hold it all, and the… other me… doesn't either."

"That's convenient," Martin says. 

"About as convenient as any of the rest," says Jon. "Martin… what did they  _ say?  _ Did they know… what…"

"They didn't say much. It was… it was brief, really. They asked about you. Said I looked awful. They scared the  _ life  _ out of me, actually, I thought they were… Helen or the Not-Sasha or something. But… no, I don't think they knew what was going on," says Martin. "I think they were just… living their lives. And something… intersected. I don't know. It was odd." He hesitates for a moment, before adding, "I… dreamed about Sasha, earlier. After we listened to the tapes, while you were…" He cuts himself off, shakes his head a little. "I tried to warn her. About Artifact Storage. And she… she asked if it was happening again. Couple times, actually. Like I'd said something like that  _ before _ ."

"We've been filling them in, I think," Jon says grimly. "Can't blame us, although I'm surprised Tim and Sasha even  _ believed _ us. I assumed they had level heads on their shoulders."

"Oh,  _ please. _ Believing in the supernatural hardly excludes someone from having a level head, Jon. It's  _ true. _ " Martin motions at the taped-over windows. "You've  _ seen _ that it's true!" 

"Yes, yes, I know, it's just…" Jon begins, without finishing. 

"Yeah, I know," Martin finishes. He shoves up his glasses to rub at his eyes. This is all so exhausting, a neverending barrage of insane information. He's still hoping for its eventual end. 

After a moment of silence, Jon speaks. "I… Martin, have you noticed I haven't slept since we've been here?"

"Yeah, I… did pick up on that," says Martin, twisting at the hair tie. "Although you did fall asleep a minute ago. And meanwhile,  _ I've _ been falling asleep at the drop of a hat."

He's not sure why, but he sees the ghost of a smile on Jon's face at that. "I assume that sleep is where the timelines merge, somehow," he says. "You've been making… contact with yourself when you sleep. And I haven't been sleeping, so the… future version of me… has been unable to make contact."

"Except you  _ were _ asleep," Martin says. "Just now."

"I am aware." Jon exhales slowly through his nose. "And I did make contact," he says. "I talked with… myself. I suppose. And he… I… or whoever. He had ideas about… all of this." 

"Like what?" Martin sits up straighter, maybe eager. Maybe a little too eager, but he doesn't care—if the version of Jon that was able to start an apocalypse, manipulation or not, has ideas about this, then he's ready to listen. Maybe this Jon will have some idea of how to get them home. 

"Well, he didn't know what caused it, although he suspected interference from the Web. But he wasn't certain." Jon sighs, jostles his foot against the coffee table. "He  _ did  _ have ideas about… how we could get back. He seemed to think that…  _ we  _ could do it."

"Seriously?" says Martin. " _ How? _ "

"I'm not sure. He… or, well, I seemed to think that I'd… figure it out in the moment. Or something like that." Jon grimaces a little. "This is all a bit confusing, isn't it?"

"That's one word for it." Martin looks towards the tape recorder on the coffee table, where they've left it. He halfway expects it to crackle to life again, show them something that hasn't happened yet (or that they don't remember), but it stays quiet, finally. "Jon," he says, "did they… do  _ we…  _ do they  _ want  _ to come back?" 

He keeps remembering what the other him had said in that dream, in Jon's flat. What both of them had said, about not wanting to leave. And Martin can't even blame them. Even if they  _ were _ happy here—and Martin thinks they really were happy here—this is the place where the world has ended. This is the place where they ran to leave behind all the horrible things that happened. This is the place where Jon was forced to end the world. And now all of it is  _ gone _ —why would they want to come  _ back? _ Martin wants to go back more than anything—wants to get out of here, and wants a chance to make things better. But he can't imagine ever trading anything for  _ this.  _

Jon hesitates for a moment. "They… they want to give us a chance to fix things on our own," he says. "Or… Martin does, at least. We know what's coming, and continued… continued, er, switching like this could cause damage to the timeline."

"Yeah, the other me didn't seem happy that I'd left the house, when he popped in," says Martin. "But… I mean, that doesn't mean that they  _ want  _ to."

"No, Martin, it doesn't." Jon sighs. "I… I doubt this other version of us wants to come back here, really. But I'm not sure we have a choice. This… this isn't  _ right.  _ We're… hurting things, staying here, and this isn't…" He sighs again, rubs a hand over his eyes. "If we go back, we… we know what's coming. We can fix things. So maybe we… won't be coming back to this, someday. Because this reality won't exist."

"There's something to hope for," Martin says, with an uncertain little laugh. He doesn't want to ever come back here again. (The apocalypse, not the house. He doesn't actually mind the house. He thinks under different circumstances, he might actually like it.) He sighs, too, adds, "I just… feel guilty, I guess. Knowing that  _ some  _ version of us has to come back here. I wouldn't want to come back here."

"Me, either," says Jon, quietly. "But… it has to be done. We can't continue like this."

"No," says Martin. "No, we can't." That much is obvious. There is so much they have to fix, and they can't do it here. There's so much they have to  _ live  _ through—even if they go back and nothing changes, Martin still doesn't want to be here, missing two years of his life. He needs to live all of this for himself, needs it to be  _ his  _ memories and not something that hasn't happened to him yet. That alone is worth going back for. 

He takes a deep breath, digs his nails into the fabric of the couch and looks back at Jon. "So… when do we go?" he says. "Did the other you say that?"

"He said… as soon as possible," says Jon, tentatively. "Now, really. He… said we should do it now."


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so here is chapter 5! i am nearly done with chapter 6 and should hopefully have it up on friday. 
> 
> the excellent art in this chapter was done by @chromaticmelody on tumblr and can be found here: https://chromaticmelody.tumblr.com/post/636518977606123520/another-piece-for-tma-big-bang-2020-this-one-is. i've waited to link it thus far since it dealt with a later scene, but it is amazing art and you all should check it out!
> 
> once again, i've pulled some dialogue, etc, from scenes from the show. i'll list the episodes i pulled from in the end notes to avoid spoilery stuff, but it's all there if you want to check it out. none of this dialogue is mine, although i did manipulate it in places, and thanks again to the transcripts for their help with this. 
> 
> warnings for this chapter include some canon-typical violence, fear, grief, and death. this is mostly (literally) rooted in canon. there is also one brief appearance of stabbing.
> 
> find me on tumblr @ghostbustermelanieking, where i am contemplating what other fic premises i can try out after i finish this chapter.

"Whenever you're ready, I guess," Jon says. 

They're on the couch again. Martin has walked around the house a little, in some pathetic grab at preparing himself. Went up to the bedroom and looked through the notebooks, walked through the kitchen and looked at the photos on the fridge. Some attempt to take the only parts he actually wants to keep with him. (He has to remind himself that he's not necessarily _losing_ the good parts, few as they are—he just hasn't experienced them yet. He might get to do it better the next time around, even. It might be _better_ the next time around.)

Martin inhales slowly and nods. "Yeah. Yeah, let's do it. No sense in wasting time, right?" Even though time might be all they _have._

"Right," Jon says. He seems to settle a little, shifting on the couch, pushing stray hair out of his face—and Martin thinks about how it must be annoying to go to sleep with shorter hair and wake up with long hair, with no time to adjust; he's been dealing with that some himself, but Jon's hair is notably longer than his. He wonders why Jon doesn't just put it up, that's what he would do if it was his hair. And then he remembers the hair tie on his wrist, the one that was there when he woke up, the one that _can't_ be his because his hair isn't long enough to put up. 

A stunned warmth blooms in Martin's chest again, and he twists at the hair tie out of habit. Thinks about what circumstances might have ended in him taking Jon's hair tie to put it around his wrist. And then he's pulling it off his wrist and extending his hand awkwardly to Jon. When Jon gives him a look like he's been caught off guard, Martin adds quickly, "I-I… I think this might be yours. Mine isn't, uh, really long enough for this." 

"Oh, um." Jon flushes a bit, and takes the hair tie from Martin. "Um, thank you. Thank you, Martin." 

Martin watches absently as Jon twists half of his hair back, out of his face, and puts it up. Thinks about how often he's grabbed or twisted that hair tie as a nervous tic, since he's woken up, out of habit more than anything. For a moment, he has an odd memory of the hair tie that he knows definitely didn't happen in the time since he's been here—Jon teasing him about stealing them when he really doesn't _need_ them, Martin standing behind Jon and putting his hair up for him—but he blinks, and it is gone. Like it was never there in the first place. 

Jon takes a sudden, deep breath beside Martin, stares down at his hands for a moment before adding awkwardly, "It… would you mind if I…" His hand extends halfway towards Martin's where it rests on the couch before jerking to a stop. 

Martin presses his palm flat against the cushion and tries not to inhale sharply, tries not to stare at the new white line left behind by the absent hair tie. (Like a wedding ring when you take it off after a divorce, he thinks, absurdly.) "It might, er… be easier if we were to…" Jon tries again, uneasily, hand hovering anxiously over the couch, like he's ready to yank it right back if Martin says no.

"Yeah, that's fine," Martin says quickly, just to end the deliberation. And to prove it, he closes the distance, brushing his fingers over Jon's just before Jon slips his hand into Martin's. His hand is cool and light in Martin's, and Martin has to force himself to think about anything else. He's over-aware of it all, of the awkward way their fingers tangle and jumble before sliding together seamlessly. They'd held hands in the dream in Jon's flat, Martin remembers that, but this feels… different. Monumental. Like something that is actually happening to him all over again, even more so than the tape of the Lonely. (Probably because it _is_ , this time, it is really him, sitting here, holding Jon’s hand.)

"... Right," Jon says, and he clears his throat again. "Right. I'm just going to…" He shuts his eyes, just before they start to glow green. Readjusts his hold on Martin's hand so he's holding tighter, like Martin is going to… disappear or something. Martin wonders if he should shut his eyes, too. He isn't sure what his _role_ is in all this. 

"Try… thinking about the past," Jon says. "Remembering what you were doing the day before we got sent back, or… thinking about how things were in 2016, or… _Shit._ " He inhales sharply, and Martin looks up to find Jon looking at him apologetically, eyes the normal color, clearly having picked up on Martin’s silent question. "Sorry, Martin, I—I'm _sorry,_ I didn't mean to…"

"Jon, it's _fine_ . That's… I know you didn't mean to. And, I mean, we don't have to worry about this for much longer, right? When we get back?" Martin says, lightly as he can. He _does_ know Jon didn't mean to, can't really help it, and that does help.

Jon's expression lands somewhere between a smile and a grimace. "Perhaps. I'm… not sure if this can be turned back. The… other me didn't seem to think it could be."

"Well. We'll just have to see then, huh?" Martin says. (And on an impulse, pokes Jon's thumb with his. Affectionate jab or whatever.) "We're going back to change things. We should be able to change _this,_ shouldn't we?" If they're preventing the end of the world, than maybe they can prevent Jon ever having to deal with the powers that _allowed_ the end of the world. 

Jon exhales slowly and nods. "I… I hope so." His voice sounds a little hollow here, like he isn't sure. He readjusts their hands on the cushion between them and shuts his eyes again, which Martin supposes is their signal to start again. This time, he shuts his eyes again, too. 

He starts with thinking of the storage room, which seems to make the most sense. That tiny little room clustered with boxes and Jon's cot and his things. His musty clothes, his stack of books and notebooks, the tape recorder he's pilfered to record poetry on. It always smells like a strange combination of paper and ink and dust in there. It's always _freezing_ in there. (He thinks back some to the dream where he and the other Martin had woken up there, and Martin remembers his head being clogged with thoughts about forgetting how _cold_ it was…) He thinks about his flat, that he hasn't seen in weeks, the bathroom with the huge tub and the stove and the kettle, the rug from his mum's old house. Worms in the vents and window cracks and insistent knocking at the door, and Martin's shaking his head at that and moving on to something else. He thinks about Jon's flat, even though this him has never officially seen it. The couch was sort of awful (in that it looked a million years old), but the decor was nice enough. Granite countertops. Lots of books. He thinks about the dream where he was sitting on that couch and 2018 Jon told him he could stay. He thinks about the basement office, the desk he feels like he lives at now that's shoved over by Tim's and Sasha's, the permanently-closed shape of Jon's door… The click-clack of Sasha's laptop keys. The little ball that they'd toss back and forth when things got slow. The mug Tim keeps on the edge of his desk. He can picture it all so _clearly_. The office, and the storage room, and his flat, and all of it. Almost like he is still there. 

Martin sits there and thinks about it all for what feels like forever, and still nothing happens. The room stays quiet. Jon stays quiet, his hand clasped in Martin's. Nothing changes. Martin doesn't know what he was expecting when he thought _time travel,_ but it wasn't… _this._ Sitting around on a couch and trying to _picture_ things. He supposes that's what you get when you involuntarily sign up to work with a power called the Eye. 

He wonders if maybe it would work if he thought about Tim and Sasha, things they said, tried to call up their voices. Pulls his mind back to the encounter upstairs, that strange, ghostly encounter. The things that Sasha and Tim said. That doesn't work, either, maybe because that happened _here,_ and not there. The only thing left to think about is the tapes, and Martin doesn't really want to relive those again, even in his head. And it feels like they've been sitting here for a very long time. A ridiculously long time, actually. 

He tries one more time, reaches for the dream where he and Sasha and Tim were in the storage room and Jon came in and hugged them all in relief. But no, that wasn't—that wasn't _this_ them, they haven't lived through that, not yet. He can see it all so clearly: Tim and Sasha looking confused, his own stunned expression, the cadence of Jon's voice when he said, _It is…_ so _good to see the both of you._ But that doesn't matter because that wasn't _them,_ not really. 

"Jon," Martin says, faintly. "Jon, I don't think this is working…" He's about to open his eyes when he hears it: the crackling of static, the buzzing in the air he heard when the Not-Sasha got scared. 

The tape player clicks on, from where it sits on the coffee table. Martin's eyes fly open as he hears a conversation. Hears _their_ voices rise up from the tape, a less tired version of their voices. His voice, saying, _Jon, do you think this is working?_ and the other Jon saying, _I don't_ know _, it's all… I'm more_ disconnected _here, I can't… I'm too… far…_

" _Martin,_ " the Jon next to him says, voice straining and crackling with static, holding tight to Martin's hand, and Martin looks towards him. And just as he does, he feels pain blossom behind his forehead, a spike pressing through his skull, and he cries out a little and holds tight, and the static is rising and rising—

\---

_—and then there is fog. Everywhere, pressing in on all sides, pushing its way down Martin's throat. There are little waves lapping at his shoes. And none of it matters, not really. Martin walks and walks and the colorless fog only gets thicker._

_Faintly, in the distance, Martin can hear the sound of two men talking, their voices rising and falling through the gentle sound of the waves. He isn't sure who they are, not at first, and he doesn't have much motivation to go and find out. They're arguing, maybe, and Martin wonders absently about what. One of the voices sounds slightly familiar, in the way that Martin suspects means he's heard it on one of the tapes. (Are the tapes running? Yes—he hears the telltale whir underneath it all. The tapes are always running.) The other… the other voice…_

_"Martin!" Jon appears in the fog in front of him, suddenly. It_ is _Jon, Martin realizes idly, and he feels silly for not knowing it before._

_"Jon?" he says, matter-of-factly._

_"I-I’m here. I came for you," says Jon. His voice is thick with concern, his eyes dark and worried among the greyscale._

_"Why?" Martin says, because it doesn't seem to him like_ any _of this is necessary at all._

_Jon is quiet for a moment before he says, "I thought you might be lost."_

_"Are you real?" Martin asks. None of this feels real, really, it all looks and sounds like a dream, like it isn't really happening to_ him _._

_"Yes! Yes, I-I-I am. Come on, we’ve got to get out of here," Jon says. There's urgency deep in his voice, and Martin_ really _doesn't understand it, because he's fine here. He's just fine._

_"No," he says. "No, I don’t think so."_

_"Why?" Jon says, shocked._

_"This is where I should be. It feels right."_

_"Martin, don't say that."_

_"Nothing hurts here. It’s just quiet," says Martin. "Even the fear is gentle here." And it is. He's filled with this strange calm he hasn't felt since… not since… the safehouse? No, that isn't right, he hasn't been there yet._

_"This isn’t right. This isn’t_ you _," Jon says._

_"It is, though," Martin says, because it's true. And then, he laughs a little and adds, "I really loved you, you know?" And then he is walking away. He is walking further down the strip of sand into the fog. He hears Jon's voice rising in the fog, sounding upset, but he doesn't turn back, and he doesn't understand why Jon is so upset because this really_ is _right, and where he's supposed to be, and—_

_No. Martin's foot hits a bump in the sand and he stumbles to a stop, right where he is on the shoreline, brow furrowing with confusion. No, this isn't right. He was in the house and he was holding Jon's hand and then the tape recorder started buzzing and then he—_ this isn't right. 

_Behind him, Jon is shouting his name, and Martin whirls, staring at Jon's form through the fog. "Jon?" he says, uncertain, and understanding flashes through Jon's eyes, and just as he takes a step towards Martin, just as Martin's mouth begins to form Jon's name again, the static starts to rise—_

\---

_—he's lighting pieces of paper on fire and dropping them methodically in a garbage can set on a table. He's lighting_ statements _on fire, and this becomes clear when Elias comes in. He's standing in front of Martin, looking furious, and he's prodding Martin to know_ why _. "Maybe I just thought it might hurt," Martin says._

_"No more than you’re hurting yourself by acting out," says Elias._

_Martin supposes this is a threat. Something must bubble over because the next thing he says is furious and harsh. "Oh, so that’s it, isn’t it. Martin’s just acting out. I mean, Daisy’s a 'rabid dog,' and Melanie’s a potential killer, Tim’s a—a_ rogue element, _but Martin, oh, Martin’s just acting out. He’ll have a cry, and a lie down, and feel much better."_

_"And if you’re trying to convince me otherwise, then you are failing," Elias says. "Now, if you’re quite done, I am very busy."_

_"Oh, sorry. Sorry, I’m not—keeping you from the show, am I? Well—well, you head back. I’ll keep myself busy here. Albrecht von Closen is next, I think," Martin snaps. He lifts an aged yellowed paper from the stack and clutches the lighter in one hand. "He’s quite an old one. Should go up very quickly."_

_Elias inhales exhaustedly, like Martin is a—a_ naughty child _having a tantrum. And just as he does, Martin's eyes shift and land somewhere over Elias's shoulder, on something that should not be there._

_Jon is standing in the corner, shadows across his face, watching Martin with an expression lined somewhere between concern and… amazement, maybe. Martin blinks in surprise, like he's seen a ghost or something, because yes, Jon is definitely not dead, but he still—he was_ not _here before._

_Elias is saying, "Did Jon put you up to this?"_

_Martin yanks his eyes back to Elias, blinking confusedly. "... Jon?" It's as much of a question aimed at Jon as at Elias. Jon meets his gaze from behind Elias._

_Elias isn't phased; he doesn't move, or look behind him. "It’s the sort of half-baked scheme he’d come up with, and I am well aware that you’d do just about anything for him," he says. "And I don’t need to read your mind for that one."_

_It becomes obvious, then, that Elias does not know that Jon is here. Or maybe that Jon isn't_ supposed _to be here. "I-Is it so hard to believe that I hate you as well?" Martin says absently. It feels like he is reading from a script._

_"No. It’s just hard to imagine that you would act on it."_

_"You think I’m what—I’m, I’m, I’m, um, blind?" Martin meets Jon's eyes again. He wants to ask what is happening; he hasn't heard this on the tapes yet._

_"Oh, no. You’ve made that quite clear," Elias says._

_"So what? I don’t get to be angry? I don’t get to burn things? Just—just run around, making tea, while everyone else gets to actually have feelings?" Martin snaps. That feels authentic, for a moment; it's the type of thing he's been wanting to say for a long time. And it feels good, coming out of his mouth. But it still feels wrong—this isn't something he's lived through yet, he doesn't know what's happening here or why. He still feels like he's acting something out._

_Elias says something about getting to the point, says something about Martin wasting his time. Martin says, "Yeah. Yeah, maybe." Elias says, "I see. That puts me in a… difficult position."_

_Something flashes in Jon's eyes; Martin can see it, even in the shadows. His hand clenches around the lighter. Elias says, "You might want to turn the tape off, Martin," and Martin's hand goes for the recorder on instinct, just as Jon says, "Elias,_ stop, _" his voice rising cacophonously in a space that was previously left quiet._

_He steps towards Elias just as Elias turns around, shock that was not there before blossoming on his face, and Martin's hand tightens, his vision spinning, and he says, "Wait," and the tape recorder vomits loud buzzing again—_

\---

_—and Martin is in a hallway with colorful, spinning wallpaper. Tim is there, too, scars dotted along his arms and neck, and he's swearing at a tape recorder, smacking at it with one hand. He's never been here before. He doesn't want to be here at all. "Tim," Martin says, fumbling to brush a hand against Tim's shoulder. "T-Tim, Tim, where are we?"_

_"I don't_ know, _Martin. That hasn't changed in the last five minutes," Tim snaps. He stares down at the recorder like there is something missing and mutters, "This is all wrong… all of this is…"_

_"We wanted to change things," Martin says. "We were trying to_ save things, _we… we wanted to get to the past and… save you and Sasha, but it… it all went wrong…"_

_"What are you talking about?" Tim looks up at Martin, and then behind Martin, his expression shifting like he sees something there. "What is_ he _doing here?"_

_Martin turns and finds Jon behind him, the only solid thing in this shifting, blurry hallway. "Jon?" he says, in surprise, but not overly surprised—it should be expected, after what just happened in the office with Elias._

_"How'd you get here, huh?" Tim says irritably. "Open a strange door? Follow us into the tunnels? Or maybe you're the reason we're here in the first place?"_

_"Tim," Jon says, his voice raw, and below it all, Martin hears the static again. "Tim, I'm so sorry—"_

\---

_—and Martin stumbles into place, feet unsteady. He jolts into something that almost looks like a statue—a very poorly-made statue—and it rattles in place, banging against the one next to it. Martin stumbles backwards into another one, and as it rocks towards him, Martin goes to steady it and feels wax under his fingers._

_Further into the room he is in, Martin hears a muffled yelp. Martin tenses all at once, steadying himself against one of the wax figures. For a second, he can only panic—he doesn't know where he is, and all of these wax figures are horrible and creepy—until the familiarity of the sound cements itself. Jon._

_Martin pushes through the figures, heart thudding, and finds Jon, tied to a chair in the midst of the figures. "Jon?" he whispers on panicked instinct, and Jon meets his eyes, makes a sound of fear dampened by the gag in his mouth. "_ Jesus _," Martin hisses and jerks forward, fumbling with the knot at the back of Jon's head and pulling the gag away as gently as he can. "Jon? Are you all right? Are you hurt?"_

_"M-Martin, this isn't right," Jon says, voice high and panicked. "It's the Circus, t-they took me, and I know where we are, but you weren't ever here, this_ isn't right _."_

_"Jon, it's okay, it's okay, I'm going to get you out of here," Martin says, and he puts his hand against Jon's cheek without thinking about it. Like there is a little bit of 2018 Martin here with him._

_Jon leans into it for a minute before fear snaps into his eyes and he shakes his head. "We aren't going to stay, Martin, it's—it's all changing, and we can't get back—we_ can't get back… _"_

_Somewhere, far off, Martin hears the sound of calliope music. The fear in Jon's eyes only increases and he starts to struggle; guilt bites into Martin and he thinks furiously that he needs to untie Jon now, and he should have a long time ago, but before he can move, the tape recorder set on the ground at the foot of Jon's chair crackles to life—_

\---

_"—found… I’ve found that table you were talking about._ _Don’t really see what all the fuss is about. Just a… basic… optical illusion," says Sasha._

_Martin blinks, and shakes his head, and he is in Artifact Storage, jammed up between a creepy-looking armoire and that calliope organ from the statement Jon had them investigating. Jon is next to him, their shoulders pressed together. And Sasha is standing in front of them, her back to them, standing facing the creepy table. The Amy Patel table, the one the Not-Sasha lives in, the one that is going to_ kill _her. No, Martin says, his mouth moving, but no sound comes out._

_"Jon!" Sasha says into her tape recorder, sounding panicked now. "Jon, I think there's someone in here." And there_ is _—Martin can see it, a tall, gangly figure lurking in the shadowy corners of the room. He shudders all over, suddenly freezing and sick on his stomach, wanting to speak, but the words are stuck in his throat. He can feel the phantom fingers of the Not-Sasha, pressed and burning to his forehead._

_"Sasha," Jon says, next to Martin, raw and grieving. "Sasha, I'm here. I'm_ here _."_

_The words climb up Martin's throat and he blurts, "Sasha, RUN, don't look, turn_ _around…"_

_Sasha turns immediately, dropping the tape recorder, confusion coated all over her face as she meets their eyes. Her mouth opens, as if she's going to say something, just as the shape moves behind her, practically lunging. "Sasha!" Jon shouts, at the same time Martin does, and Martin fumbles on instinct for_ something _—his phone to turn on the torch, the knife he carried through the apocalypse, that he dropped upstairs in the safe house when he saw Tim and Sasha—but what he comes up with is a tape recorder that switches on in his hand—_

\---

_"—I think I’ve found a way for us to leave the Institute," Jon says. He's standing in front of Martin's desk, in an office Martin doesn't recognize, leaning forward with his hands pressed to the top._

_"Oookay?" Martin says. He isn't sure what Jon means._

_"Yeah. But it’s—it’s pretty drastic," says Jon._

_Martin laughs a little and says, "What, you going to gouge your eyes out, or something?"_

_No answer, or denial. Jon's expression doesn't waver; he nods, just a minuscule amount. "_ Fuck off _," Martin breathes, understanding. He continues, stammering, "Right. Uh, uh, right, uh… Um… like, I mean… permanently? Or…"_

_"I-I-I don’t know; I suppose. I-If your vision comes back, the Beholding probably does as well- probably. But i-it’s not like it’s easy to only blind yourself temporarily anyways—"_

_"Uh, y-yeah, yeah," Martin says, dizzy with disbelief. "Uh… H-Have you told the others, or…?"_

_"No, you're the first."_

_"Why?"_

_"Uh, because… because—because I trust you," Jon says. "I-I’m trying to think about what to do, and I…" He pauses, breathes out slowly. "If I did try this, I don’t want to do it alone. But we could leave here, you and me. Escape."_

_He reaches out like he wants to touch Martin's hand but freezes, hand hovering over the table, inches away from Martin's hand. Martin stares at it, Jon's fingertips hanging in the air. He knows what he is supposed to say, the words that come next in this script. He is supposed to say no. But that's not what he says. Instead he says, "Okay."_

_Jon blinks, head jerking back a bit like he wasn't expecting Martin to say yes. His fingers brush over the back of Martin's hand; voice breaking, he says, "Martin—"_

\---

_"—Jo-on!" someone is calling, at the top of their lungs. Someone, a familiar voice—the Not-Sasha—_

_A hand jams over Martin's mouth just as the Not-Sasha calls, "Come out, come out, wherever you are." Martin gasps in sharp panic, and turns abruptly to push whoever this away, but he only sees Jon, eyes wide with panic and full of tears. Jon holds a shaking finger in front of his lips: Be quiet._

_Martin nods, understanding, and Jon takes his hand away, but he doesn't let go; his hand tangles panickedly in the fabric of Martin's jumper. Martin doesn't mind. He holds his breath, an attempt to steady his breathing, and listens to the Not-Sasha search. "You seem stressed, Jon. You’ve been under a lot of pressure," she says, tauntingly. "You should talk about it. Have a real good chat. You like talking, don’t you, Jon?"_

_Jon presses his free hand over his own mouth, tears spilling over the back. Martin reaches up to grab his hand on instinct, and only grips it tighter as Not-Sasha's next words float through the tunnels: "I’m going to wear you, John. I’m going to wear everything you are. Like you never existed. No one will even know." Martin's own vision blurs and he thinks of Sasha, and the moment by the carousel—the hand burning against his forehead—and it all spins around him. The tape recorder by their feet is whirring._

_"And it will hurt. Oh, yes, it will hurt. It hurt Sasha," says the Not-Sasha, and red swims across Martin's vision just as Jon bellows, "Shut up!"_

_And the recorder explodes in static, loud and cacophonous, just as the Not-Sasha says, "There you are," everything starts to crumble—_

\---

_—away. Martin doesn't know how he's going to walk away. He's got Jon's hand in both of his, sitting at his bedside and listening to the quiet where there should be the beeping of machines. Sitting in here, it's like Jon really is dead._

_He's talking without really registering the words, and trying not to cry. It's a battle he's losing; he can feel the tears dripping down his face. "We really need you, Jon," he's saying. "Everything’s—It’s bad. I-I don’t know how much longer we can do this. We—_ I _need you. And I-I know that you’re not—I know there’s no way to—" He stops for a moment. Jon's hand is chapped and cool between his; Martin squeezes it a little. "But we need you, Jon. Jon, please, just—_ Please _." He takes a trembling breath, another. "If-If there’s anything left in you that can still see us, or—or some power that you’ve still got, or—or—or—something,_ anything _, please!"_

_Jon doesn't answer. Of course he doesn't. Martin says it again, anyway, softly. "Please. I-I can't—"_

_Abruptly, his phone buzzes in his pocket, making Martin jolt a little. He lets go of Jon's hand, sets it down on the bed and stands and reaches for the phone, even though a voice in his head—his own, or maybe even Jon's, he can't tell—is screaming for him not to. He pulls the phone out and presses the button to answer it and—_

\---

_—the fog is back. And so is the beach, and so is the grey. Martin's hands are drawn in greyscale. He stares down at them for a long moment without really knowing why, fingers spread in the murky air._

_"Martin!" someone shouts, far off, insistent and desperate. "_ Martin! _"_

_Martin drops his hands and turns, eyes scanning the horizon, squinting, but he sees no one. The voice comes again—"Martin!"—and Martin shouts back, "Jon?" in return._

_"Martin?" Something moves through the fog, a figure with blurry edges. Martin cannot make it out. "Martin, where are you?"_

_"Jon!" Martin says again, and he scrubs at his face like he's been crying. His fingers are freezing. He stumbles towards the figure, but every footstep feels as if it's quicksand. His feet weigh a tremendous amount, he feels like he can go no further. "Jon, I'm here. I'm her—"_

\---

_—here is the coffin, right where it's meant to be. The chain is coiled on the ground, but the lid is shut, and Martin isn't sure if it's enough. He can feel a tug in his gut, a tether aside from the knowledge that Jon is down there—go down there, it seems to say, come in, maybe you can get him back…_

_Martin ignores it. As much as he wants to follow Jon, he—he can't. There is no guarantee that he would come back out, or that he would find Jon and Daisy in the first place, and everything with Peter… there are still people he needs to save, even if Jon…_

_No. There is a reason he came, and it's not to go into the coffin, no matter how much he might want to. Martin kneels beside the coffin and sets several tape recorders on the top. And then several more. Methodically, he piles a good layer of them all across the top, and all the time he's thinking,_ Come back, Jon, please come back, you idiot, please. _He doesn't know why he's doing this, only that he thinks it might help, and he's holding back the urge to press his hand fully to the top of the coffin lid like he's in some horrible romantic drama instead of the horrible reality he's actually in. And then he hears the knocking._

_Martin freezes in the midst of setting a recorder down. The sound is so unexpected—he thinks back to the statement Jon read ages ago. He remembers that the statement-giver heard plenty of sounds from the coffin, scratching or something, but this_ isn't _scratching. "Hello?" he says, cautious as he can, and then he adds in a softer voice, in case someone (Peter) is listening: "Jon?"_

_The knocking increases, grows more frantic, until it's become an all-out pounding on the underside of the coffin. "Jon?" says Martin again, although he already knows the answer, and then he seems to come back to himself—"Jon, Jesus, what are you—don't worry, I'm going to—" And he's digging his fingers into the crack to open the coffin lid, frantic to get it open, and the pounding only increases, and then every tape recorder in the room switches on—_

\---

_"—what's in your hand?" Jon asks._

_Martin blinks awake in a theater, in the midst of a standoff between Jon and Tim and what looks like a living mannequin who is glaring at them. There's an axe on the floor. Tim's got a rectangle in his hand, and he says, disoriented, "It's… I don't… the detonator."_

_"No," Martin says, out loud, and all three of them look towards him. He isn't supposed to be here, he remembers, but he can't help it, he can't_ not say anything _. "Tim,_ don't. _"_

_Tim blinks in confusion, like he is looking into the sun. "Martin? I don't—we left you in_ London _."_

_"Time's gone wrong," says Martin. "Tim, please, you don't have to—the rituals_ don't work _." He heard Jon's tape, he remembers this._

_"It's a trick," Tim says softly. "It's not really Martin, it's another trick."_

_"It's Martin," Jon says, his voice strained. "Tim, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry—"_

_"You won't make it out, you know," says the mannequin, self-satisfied. "There's no point in even_ trying _—"_

_"The ritual_ doesn't work _!" Martin shouts. His eyes are on the detonator in Tim's hand; he knows that Jon will survive this, but it's another mark, it's six months in a coma that will drive them all further apart, and_ Tim _… "Tim, please, it won't work, and none of this is going to happen because we can_ fix _it, TIM…"_

_Martin doesn't get to finish. The static rises, and—_

\---

_—and it's the fog again. There's screaming somewhere, and static, and Jon's voice darkened with fury. It reminds Martin of the Not-Sasha, by the carousel. He hears screaming, familiar screaming, and then Jon's voice saying, "Martin. He's gone, Martin. He—" Jon's voice goes out, and then comes back in, confused and muzzy. "Martin?"_

_"Jon," Martin says, and he turns, trying to find him. The fog is crushing on all sides. "Jon?"_

_"Martin? Martin, can you hear me?" Jon's voice has gone echoey, like they're in an echo chamber. Martin stumbles towards the voice, he can hear it getting louder, but there's still nothing, all he can find is the fog. "Martin, please, we have to get out of here. We need you." Jon's voice goes soft around the edges, to the point where Martin probably shouldn't be able to hear it, but he can: "_ I _need you."_

_"Jon!" Martin says, and he can feel cold liquid sliding down his cheeks. "Jon, I can't find you, I can't—I can't_ find you, _where are you?"_

_"Martin!" Jon is shouting, "Martin!" and Martin keeps walking and walking, but he can't find Jon, he can't—_

\---

_"—Come now, Martin. I would have thought you’d jump at the chance to kill me," says Elias._

_Martin is at the top of a tall tower, with Elias and Peter Lukas and a rotting corpse with no eyes on some sort of a throne. And there's a knife in his hands. He stares down at it like he has never seen it before. (And this version of him hasn't.) "That’s not… why wouldn’t you help against the Extinction?" he says numbly._

_"Because I’m a busy man. It has never been my top priority," Elias says._

_Martin says, "I don't believe you." He looks at the throne and sees, in the shadows of it, Jon watching him with wide eyes._

_"That really doesn’t matter, I’m afraid," says Elias. "It’s the only answer you’re going to get."_

_"If I…" Martin stops, and then stops. Starts again: "If I do kill you, will the others survive?"_

_"Elias?" Peter Lukas says. Prods, maybe._

_Elias says, "Come now, Peter, it’s a valid question. And you should have addressed it yourself, really." He looks at Martin, eyes cool and calculating and just a tad bit smug. "The short answer is, I don’t know, Martin. I guarantee it won’t be pleasant for them, but I honestly don’t know if their ties to the Institute are quite as strong as I may have implied. You, at least, should be insulated from the fallout by your new allegiance. Jon… might be powerful enough to weather it. Melanie’s well out of it, so that just leaves Basira and Daisy. And the rest of the Institute, of course, and you can’t tell me you care about them."_

_"Of course I do!" Martin says, genuinely upset for a moment. He doesn't know whoever is left now like the other him does, but that doesn't mean—that doesn't mean he doesn't_ care _._

_"Do you though? Do you really care about any of them?" asks Elias. "Or is that worrying just simply an old reflex?" Martin doesn't answer. He's watching Jon by the throne again, watching Jon take a step into the light. "Goodness. Peter has done his work well, hasn’t he?" says Elias. "No, the only choice I think that matters is whether you want to kill me or not."_

_"I do," says Martin, and it's true. He laughs a little. "I really, really do."_

_"Then do it, Martin," says Peter, wheedling, conniving. "We’re the same, you and I. We don’t need anyone else. Watching from a distance, that’s always who you’ve been. Haven’t you enjoyed it these last few months, drifting through the Archives unseen, unjudged? You’ll like it in there. I promise."_

_From his spot against the back wall, Jon shakes his head. Martin's mouth moves anyway: "Yeah. Yeah, I think I would." And he really believes that, too._

_Peter says, "Then do it. Kill him and help me_ save the world _."_

_It takes a long moment for Martin to answer. He's weighing the weapon in his hands, he's thinking about the act of stepping forward and killing Elias, or the ancient corpse of Jonah Magnus, or either. It would feel good. He_ knows _it would. Jonah Magnus is the reason Tim and Sasha are dead; Jonah Magnus ended the world, and the lives of billions of people. He's a monster. Maybe if Martin kills him, he can actually save the world._

_Jon takes another step and says, "Martin." Elias and Peter must not hear, because they don't look away. Martin's hand tightens around the weapon, like he is going to do it. But he doesn't. He opens his mouth and says—_

\---

_"—know you_ think _you want to be here, I know you think it’s safer, and well – well, maybe it is," says Jon. "But we need you._ I _need you."_

_Martin blinks away the fog and Jon is there. He's finally there, and Martin isn't sure why he should be surprised, but the wave of relief that washes over him is tremendous. He is sti talking, though, still reading the script. "No, you don’t," he says without wanting to. "Not really. Everyone’s alone, but we all survive."_

_"I don't just want to_ survive _!" Jon says, rough and desperate. He reaches out to seize Martin's hand, holds it tight. One or both of their hands are freezing cold._

_Martin thinks of a hospital room, the silence and Jon's cold hands and Jon's still chest. "I'm sorry," he says._

_"Martin," Jon says, squeezing his hand. "Martin, look at me. Look at me and tell me what you see."_

_"I see…" Jon's voice burrows into his head, digs in and snaps something in place, and Martin can see now. The fog is withdrawing, and Jon is here, and Martin can hear his own words from the tape repeated back to him, the recorder whirring and whirring. "I see you, Jon," Martin says, realization and relief setting in. The fog is going away. "I_ see _you."_

_"Martin," Jon says, voice thick with relief, and he jerks forward just as Jon does, and they are embracing. Martin's face is pressed into the side of Jon's neck, shaking and making muffled sounds of exhausted joy, and he knows what he is supposed to say next, but that isn't what he says. What he says is, "I couldn't find you. I heard you calling my name and I couldn't find you."_

_"It's not going right," Jon says. He presses his forehead to Martin's, a gesture that seems familiar and practiced, like he's done it a hundred times, and Martin's left wondering all over again if it's just them here. If they are the only versions of Jon and Martin in these bodies. "Things aren't going the way they did before, and we…"_

_"We haven't gone back," Martin says, pressing his hand to Jon's jaw. Jon shuts his eyes and leans into the touch like he needs it. "We haven't gone back all the way, Jon, what are we…_ where _are we?"_ When are we, _he thinks, without saying it. "H-how do we get back, how do we_ fix _this?"_

_"I don't know," Jon says, his eyes opening, and Martin can suddenly hear the whir of the tape recorder getting louder. "I don't Know, Martin, I don't—"_

\---

_—_ no, _no, no, they can't be_ here _. Martin can't stop Jon from talking, and Jon can't stop, either. Martin can see the scratched on his arms and cheeks, the smears under his fingernails and the crumpled paper and the tear tracks on his face, but Jon is still reading, because he cannot_ stop _. Statement of Hazel Rutter regarding a fire in her childhood home. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims. This is where the world ends._

_"_ Jon, _" Martin says, raw, under the panicked drone of words that are not Jon's. "Don't worry, Jon," Jonah Magnus says. "You'll get used to it here, in the world that we have made."_

_"No," Martin says. They're going to_ stop _it and this is his chance—he jerks forward, towards Jon, all he has to do is cross the room. "_ No _—Christ—Jon, I'm coming—"_

_"You who watch and know and understand none," says Jonah, Jon's mouth moving around the words. "You who listen and hear and will not comprehend. You who… wait and wait and drink in all that is not yours by right…_ Martin… _" His voice breaks, his hands trembling; the paper crumples in his hands._

_"Jon—Jon, I'm coming…" Martin's feet shuffle frantic against the floorboards, scraping against the wood, but he can't make it, he's getting no closer to Jon. "Jon, please…"_

_"Come… to us in your wholeness," Jon says, voice straining and skipping. "Come to us in… no. In… your… PLEASE."_

_"Stop—let him go, please, just STOP," Martin croaks, screaming and screaming but his voice is barely making a sound. Jon's mouth is moving, but no sound is coming out, and for a second, Martin thinks that they've won. But then he starts speaking again, his voice rising and growing darker, the words Martin remembers from the tape, and Martin tries to run, cries out in frustration because he can't get any further, can't stop this from happening, and Jon is crying, and the static is_ rising _—_

\---

_"—do it," says Peter. Kill him and help me_ save the world _."_

_Martin has the knife in his hand again. Elias is standing there again, and Peter Lukas, and Jon in the shadows of the throne. He meets Jon's eyes. He hears the forced words of Jonah Magnus in Jon's mouth. He thinks,_ No, _but that isn't what he says. He doesn't say anything._

_He lurches forward, a solid movement, raising the knife. Thinking of the altercation with Not-Sasha, thinking of Sasha and Tim and Jon and every single person in the whole world._

_Elias's eyes widen. Like he's gotten the shock of his life. He says, shocked and stiff and maybe even a little pleadingly, "_ Martin… _"_

_The knife lands somewhere between Elias's ribs, and Elias stumbles back. Brings a stunned hand to the wound. His fingers come away bloody. Martin's hands are bloody, too._

_Martin looks up and sees something between fury and pain and unending disbelief, but he isn't focused on that. Mostly he's focused on the pain. Excruciating pain, blossoming from head to toe, splitting his head and shooting through his organs, driving him to his knees. Mostly he's focused on the screaming. Jon is on his knees, too, by the throne; he meets Martin's eyes when Martin looks, mouth open in a shout of pain, and Martin thinks he might be screaming, too, screaming and screaming and—_

_\---_

_—the whir of a tape recorder. The sounds of a furious storm outside, the howling Martin's heard since he first woke up. Jon's voice, nearly shouting: I OPEN THE DOOR. And under that, Jon's voice again, still screaming._

_Martin screaming, too. He's not sure that he ever stopped._

_It's all wrong, all of it jumbled and tangled and wrong, and the screaming, and the pain, and the_ static _, and the hot tears dripping down his face, and the eye in the sky, bearing down, and Jon—Jon, under all of it, saying his name…_

\---

" _Martin_ ," Jon says, and Martin opens his eyes and he is back on the couch. Back on the couch, in the safe house, with the world howling outside, and no blood on his hands, and Jon isn't screaming anymore… 

"Jon?" Martin says, voice rasping, because Jon isn't screaming anymore, he's sitting on the couch whole and unharmed and looking at Martin with frantic, frantic concern, tense and leaning towards him like Martin will be yanked away. 

Martin jerks forward just as Jon does, and then they're embracing, Jon's arms tight around Martin, Martin's face pressed awkwardly into Jon's neck. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Martin says, voice shaking, "I'm so _sorry,_ Jon, I didn't… I didn't _know_ it would…"

"Martin, it's _fine,_ we're here, we're still here." Jon's voice is muffled against Martin's shoulder, but the shaking there is unmistakable. His fingers are digging desperately into the back of Martin's jumper. "We're still _here,_ do you understand? Whatever just happened, it… it's nothing that can't be _undone_."

They should be dead. Martin killed Elias and Elias wasn't lying, because it felt like they _died_ , Martin _felt_ it, but they're somehow still here. Somehow. They're still here. "Jon," Martin says, and nothing else. He doesn't know what else to say. He lets a few tears fall, dotting darkly on the shoulder of Jon's shirt. 

Jon's hand presses heavy and comforting against the back of Martin's head. "We're still here," he says quietly. "We're still here."

"Okay. Okay." Martin shuts his eyes. Leans into Jon's embrace for just a few more seconds before pulling back, shoving up his glasses to rub at his eyes. "What—what _happened?_ We didn't…"

"We didn't get far enough back," says Jon. "We can't get all the way back, we couldn't… it all went _wrong._ " 

"You said… things went differently," Martin says, because he doesn't remember any of those things they just went through, not really. The other Martin did, but he didn't. Doesn't. "What does that…"

"W-we haven't changed anything not permanently. I don't think…" Jon looks worried for a moment, his eyes tinged green. Martin thinks, absurdly, of chlorophyll. "Things were… _wrong_ , though," he adds. "We weren't… _together_ in all of those moments. I wasn't in the hallways, or in the Panopticon with you and Peter Lukas, and I wasn't there when you burned the statements and Elias… a-and _you_ weren't at the Unknowing, and you weren't there when the Circus had me, or when I was hiding from the Not-Sasha, or when I read Elias's statement."

"It's like we weren't really there," Martin says quietly, and then amends, remembering the feeling of Elias's blood on his hands, the sound of Jon's screams. "... Well, not really, I guess. It was just… why couldn't we get back?"

"I don't _know,_ " says Jon. "I can't… see clearly… it's like it was too _much,_ or something. L-l-like I couldn't connect with this other version of myself, or the other version of y—" He breaks off mid-sentence, something like contemplation on his face. "Like… like maybe the _both_ of us couldn't get back," he says quietly. 

"W-what do you mean?" Martin asks. "T-the both of us couldn't get back together, what does that mean?"

"I-I-it might have been too much, both of us… _both_ versions of us, I mean, all of us, trying to… trying to get back at the same time," Jon says. "I-it might have… made things go wrong."

Martin feels a sinking feeling deep in the pit of his stomach. "Wh-what does that _mean?_ We can't get back, we're _stuck_ here? We're just going to be stuck _here_ , f-forever?" 

"I don't… Martin, I don't…" Jon's expression shifts suddenly, to something more… hopeful, maybe, Martin doesn't know. "Maybe… maybe it's _just_ if it's the both of us," he says quietly. "Maybe if…"

There's silence for a moment. The wind-like howling outside the window only seems to have gotten louder, and Martin can't think. His brain is too jumbled with everything he just lived through: fog in his eyes, blood on his hands, knuckles against wood, screaming. Jon's forehead heavy and warm against his. "Jon…" he says after a moment. "Jon, what are you…" 

Jon grabs Martin's hands suddenly, in both of his. It's a sharp, rapid movement, but the actual motion is anything but harsh. Jon's touch is gentle even if it is tight, something like desperation and fear and hope all together inside of it. Martin starts, looks Jon right in the eyes. "Jon?" he says softly. Voice breaking with disbelief. 

"I have to send you back," Jon says. "I've got to send you back on your own. You might have a chance without me."

"What—wait, _what?_ " Martin blinks a couple of times in rapid disbelief, tugs at Jon's hands without letting go. "No. Jon, no."

"You can get back on your own. You can fix things, Martin, I know you can. And you'll—you'll be safer there," says Jon, his voice breaking a little. "You'll be _safe_ there."

"Jon, you know that's not true—for Christ's sake, I was held hostage in my own apartment a month ago!" Martin says, suddenly desperate—he doesn't want to be trapped here, but he can't _leave_ Jon behind here, he _can't—_

"You can change things there. You can still get away from the Institute, there! We know how, Martin, and you can… You'll _have_ that chance, if you can get back."

"Jon, I'm not leaving you here." He says it as stern as he can, he's not _arguing_ about this. He tightens his hold on Jon's hands.

"It's going to be okay, Martin," Jon says, choked, more quietly than Martin's ever heard. 

"Jon, _no._ What are you thinking, you can't—I'm not _leaving_ you here!" Martin snaps, eyes burning. On the coffee table, he can hear the tape recorder turning on, and this _can't_ happen, he won't go back alone. How does that even end—with the wrong Jon with him and the wrong Martin back here? With time being scrambled even more? This is going to go badly, he knows it, he… "Jon!" he shouts, because he can hear the low buzz of static, starting now, and it _can't end like this._ They've got to stay together, they've got to— "Jon, _don't!_ "

"Martin, I'm sorry," Jon says. Martin thinks Jon squeezes his hands, too, but he can't tell; his head is pounding again, his skull aching, his vision gone blurry, and the static is rising and rising. "Martin, I'm so—" Jon says, nearly shouting, and then he is gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the scenes i shoplifted for this fic come from episodes 39, 79, 118, 119, 154, 158, 159, and 160, and the season 4 trailer. i also made some references to scenes outside canon/events from episodes 79/80, 101, and 132/134. full credit, again, goes to the writers and the transcripts, although i did have fun messing with these scenes. 
> 
> (catch me using every excuse possible to rewrite the events in 101 in multiple fics just so jon gets rescued by someone not trying to kill him lol)
> 
> thanks to everyone for reading!!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's the final chapter! i apologize for posting late; i wanted to sit on it a bit and make sure i was happy with it. mostly i can't stand to look at it anymore but! i hope you enjoy!
> 
> the art at the end of this chapter is by @corvidtowers and @bisexualoftheblade, and can also be found here on tumblr: https://corvidtowers.tumblr.com/post/636512056832638976/my-piece-for-ghostbustermelanieking-s-work, (https://bisexualoftheblade.tumblr.com/post/636510467380199424/here-is-one-of-my-pieces-for, https://bisexualoftheblade.tumblr.com/post/636510533934284800/here-is-one-of-my-pieces-for. if you haven't already, please go and check out the art done by @eternallysadaboutjontim and @chromaticmelody, on tumblr at https://eternallysadaboutjontim.tumblr.com/post/636511593734291456/accompanying-art-for-ghostbustermelaniekings and https://chromaticmelody.tumblr.com/post/636518977606123520/another-piece-for-tma-big-bang-2020-this-one-is.

Martin wakes up standing in the hallway of the Archives. Well, if it can be _called_ waking up; it's more like he jolts back to consciousness in mid step. He stumbles a few more steps, shakes his head hard and blinks several times. Where the hell has he ended _up?_

"Jon?" he says, softly. Maybe—maybe Jon changed his mind maybe he was able to come back, too… 

He looks up and down the hallway, but there's no sign of Jon. No sign of _anyone_ , actually; he's alone here. 

He looks back at his own hands and finds the skin looking relatively smooth. Less calluses. Longer nails. No scar on his thumb. Martin reaches up to touch the back of his head and finds hair that is absolutely shorter than it was in the cabin, and all he can think is, _It_ worked, _didn't it._ Jon's sent him back, and—and Martin has _no_ idea what's happening to Jon, now. Still trapped in the house, he assumes. Still trapped two years in the future, in an apocalypse he was manipulated into creating, because he had to be ridiculous and self-sacrificing _again_ and send Martin back alone, and Martin really has no idea what to do now. What is he _supposed_ to do? He has to save Jon, but he's not—he's not the one with magic eye powers, and he's alone here, and they've still got Tim and Sasha to worry about, and there's _some_ version of Jon here, even if it's not… 

Martin blinks suddenly, hard, stares past his spread fingers at the floor. The floor is smeared with muddy pawprints. Muddy _pawprints_. Shit. 

" _Shit,_ " Martin says out loud. He knows where he is now; he remembers this day. He remembers this day, and he cannot be back here. He _cannot._ Jon sent him too far, he… it probably isn't his fault, but this isn't where Martin is supposed to _be,_ he can't be _here._ It's not far enough back that he can talk Jon and Tim and Sasha into quitting (without gouging their goddamn eyes out), it's not far enough back that _he_ can avoid working here, the transfer has already been made. So Martin's stuck, and he can't save the others from being stuck here, too, and he isn't with any version of Jon that can help him—not _his_ Jon, and not the 2018 Jon, the _Archivist,_ the one with the powers that could actually maybe help him. The Jon he heard on the tapes. 

Martin had thought, before he realized where he was, that he could find the 2018 Jon and tell him to send him back so he could get his Jon. (2018 Jon would probably go along with it; he probably misses the Martin that Martin hasn't become yet.) But he doesn't know what he's supposed to do _here._ Sit around with a Jon who hates him for letting a dog into the Archives? 

Martin isn't sure _what_ to do—aside from try to find the damn dog and skip the awkward meeting with Jon—but something else makes the decision for him. He starts walking down the hallway, his feet moving of their own accord. Like when time went wrong before, like he is following a script. Except he _knows_ this script. He's lived it before. He walks through the office, past the desks that he and Tim and Sasha haven't settled into, to Jon's open door, and sticks his head in and says, "Hey, sorry, you haven’t seen a dog, have you?"

Jon looks up at him, and for a second, Martin thinks he sees a million different emotions pass over his face. (Surprise, sadness, relief, something that might be close to care or affection.) For another second, Martin is excited, eager, hoping that it didn't work or it worked too well and _his_ Jon is here, too. But then this Jon says the next line in the script—"I-I'm sorry, what?"—and Martin's heart sinks. 

He keeps talking, anyway, like he did the first time. "Um, uh, a dog, a-a spaniel, I think," he says.

"In—in general, or…?" Jon says, the way he did before. 

Martin laughs a little, the same way he did before. "N-n-no, in the Archives." 

"Why would there be a dog in the Archives?" Jon says, voice going stern. The first time it did that. Martin can hear a hundred other disapproving chides in that first one. He knows this conversation in and out—any version of him does. 

"Who _are_ you?" Jon continues, demanding, before Martin can say anything else. That seems a little quicker than he remembers, but he doesn't bother pressing. He's just following a script; surely Jon isn't. 

"Uh, M-Martin, and, cause… I… may have… l-let him in?" Martin says. 

"What? _Why?_ " Jon says, in the same incredulous, annoyed tone from the first time. It should seem entirely too familiar to Martin, after everything, but it doesn't; after days in the safe house, it just sounds odd. 

"Well, I didn’t—I didn’t mean to; you know, uh… we were outside, making friends, and–and then I-I had to come in, but… my hands were full, and, you know, the door’s really heavy, so, so I had to use my foot, and then he just… sort of… like, got past me…" 

"Martin," Jon says, and his voice sounds unusual, strangely tight. "Martin, this is unacceptable. I-I'm… I'm afraid this is _unacceptable._ I'm afraid I won't be able to continue working with you under these circumstances."

Wait. "Wait," says Martin. It doesn't go like this. 

"We don't seem like a good fit, really, a-and… I really didn't request you to work here. Actually, I… I'm not sure I need assistants at _all,_ I'm going to… reconsider the lot of it, honestly, and I'm not…"

"Jon," Martin tries. 

He isn't listening. "Martin, I—I'm afraid I'm going to have to… dismiss you…" 

" _Jon,_ " Martin says. "Jon, stop!"

" _No,_ Martin, this is the end of it!" says Jon, and he might sound angry to someone else, but to Martin, he doesn't sound angry at all. He sounds scared. He sounds desperate and panicked and grasping at straws. "I'm dismissing you! That's it! You'll be better off with this, trust me—"

" _Jon,_ " Martin tries, and Jon finally stops, looking defeated. "I… I don't think it would _work,_ " Martin says softly. He isn't sure how this works, outside of what he's heard on the tapes in the future, but—"Elias already signed the paperwork for my transfer. I signed it, too. I don't think you or I could change it."

Jon's face falls, just a little, and he runs a hand over his eyes. "I—I _had_ to try," he says softly. He offers Martin a small, self-deprecating smile. "You know I had to try."

Martin swallows hard. Sinks into the chair on the other side of Jon's desk and reaches for the hair tie on his wrist, but it isn't there, it's with Jon in the apocalypse. Or—maybe not. Maybe not if this is… "What _happened?_ " he says, wanting to scold Jon and thank him all at once for self-sacrificially shoving him back in time alone. Except he's not alone, maybe? "Did—did it finally work? We came back together? This doesn't feel like one of the… flashes…" 

"It's—it's not," Jon says softly. There's something like a flash in his eyes, something that an absent part of Martin recognizes, and then—"It only worked in part. The way I—er, the other version of me—wanted it to go. You, uh, you came back alone."

"What do you— _oh._ " Understanding washes over him. "You're—you're the other Jon. The…"

"One from the future. Yes." Jon smiles just a little, wryly. "Sorry to disappoint."

"N-n-no, not a disappointment at all," Martin says quickly, "it's just… how are you here? How are _we_ here? This-this is further back than where… what's happened to the us-es… er, the versions of us, I mean, the ones that were here?"

Jon winces a little. "I… I don't think it's that simple, Martin. I… the timeline has fallen apart, and it's stitching itself back together, far as I can tell. Things are changing, and it's trying to put itself right."

"By putting us here?" Martin asks. "I-I didn't even know this day w-was even… an _option._ " 

"I suppose it's as much of an option as anything," says Jon. "It's… too bad that we weren't able to get here earlier. Maybe I could've… prevented this whole thing from happening in the first place." 

Martin's face lands somewhere between a smile and a wince, he thinks. It's nice to think of a scenario where they all can avoid all this—where they don't have to save Tim and Sasha at all because they're never in danger of dying in the first place, if a scenario like that is even _possible_ —but… "Jon, you don't need to do this alone," he says softly. "You shouldn't _have_ to do this alone. I _told_ you, we're in this together." 

He remembers abruptly that he had that conversation with the… other version of Jon. But Jon's face goes sort of soft at that, and he says, "I remember. You've… said that a lot, actually. Other times."

Martin thinks, _So every version of me is in agreement on this,_ and feels an odd wave of relief, even though it isn't exactly unexpected. Out loud, he says, "So you know I'm right, then."

Jon snorts in surprised laughter, pushes up his glasses to rub at his eyes. "Yes, I do." 

Martin swallows hard, looks down at his hands. They seem stunningly unfamiliar after having spent so much time staring at such different hands, or even after having gone through everything he's been through in the months since this day. (Will go through. Won't go through. He doesn't know anymore.) "So… the timeline is fixing itself?" he says, looking back up at Jon. "What does that _mean?_ Are we… are we stuck here? Are we going to have to go through the next few months all over again?" He supposes certain aspects of that are appealing—maybe avoid the two week captivity in his flat—but a part of him doesn't want to do it all over again. (What if Prentiss finds them anyway? What if Elias catches onto what they know? What if they can't avoid any of it?)

"I—I don't think so," says Jon, "but… I really don't know. We could've landed on any of those loops, I supposed. The fact that we ended up here… so much of the timeline has changed, it's hard to say what will actually… stick."

"But the apocalypse," says Martin. "The… future we ended up in. What happens to that?"

Some sort of unclear emotion falls over Jon's face, somewhere between worry and relief. "I… I don't know," he says quietly. "I really don't. I… I'd hope it would be gone, but…"

 _Jon's there,_ Martin thinks immediately, which is ridiculous, because Jon is right here. But then he sees the look on this Jon's face, and he wonders if Jon is thinking the same thing. (About his Martin, who probably ended up where Martin was, because Jon sent him back. Because Jon sent him back alone.) 

"You sent me back alone," Martin says suddenly, quietly, because even though a part of him is insisting that it wasn't this Jon that did that (although he's not sure that's true anymore, he's not sure that even makes _sense,_ and anyways, Jon said he remembered their conversation in the apocalypse), his head is still stuck in that moment. The static and the headache and Jon's shouted apologies. "You left me _again._ Why would you…" He can't finish, because he _knows_ why; he knows. But he still feels a bit lost, at the end of it all. 

"I _had_ to, Martin," Jon says softly, and his eyes are sad. "I had to try to save you, if I could." He reaches across the desk top, tentatively, and lightly covers Martin's hand with his. 

Martin doesn't pull away; he turns his hand palm-up and loops his fingers lightly through Jon's. "... Thanks," he says, unsure of what else to say. Jon smiles a little and squeezes his hand. 

Martin swallows roughly, blinks back an instinctive burn of tears. "It… it wasn't all bad, was it?" he adds. "The future, I mean. There were some good parts."

"There were," says Jon. "There really were. There… there _will_ be, I think." He squeezes Martin's hand again. "I'm… so glad I met you, Martin. I don't know if I've ever told you that."

"Any version of me?" says Martin, swiping at his cheek with the back of his free hand. Jon chuckles quietly and doesn't let go. 

"I'm glad I met you, too, Jon," Martin says, after a moment. "And… and I'm sorry about the dog."

Jon chokes out another laugh. "I'm sorry for how I reacted," he says. "It… it was a cute dog. I'm sorry you didn't get to keep it."

"... Probably for the best," Martin says, not wanting to think about what would've happened if he'd had a _dog_ when Prentiss came. 

After a beat of silence, Jon adds, "... We said we'd get a cat, you know. Someday, when things were better. Maybe even two cats."

Martin chokes back a laugh, tries to picture any sort of future where that could happen. "Yeah? Th-that… that sounds nice. I've always loved cats."

He waits for Jon to respond, but Jon doesn't say anything. After a moment, Martin sees why. There's a tape recorder by Jon's laptop, one that wasn't there before. It _wouldn't_ have been there; Jon hadn't even found the first tape recorder yet. Martin remembers. "It's putting itself right," says Jon, hushed, and if Martin had to guess by his tone, he'd say Jon—this all-knowing version of Jon—has _no_ idea where they'll end up next. 

(He hopes back where they belong. He hopes somewhere where Tim and Sasha and everyone are alive. He hopes that he and Jon will be together.)

"Will… will I see you again?" Martin says, and he thinks he means both versions of Jon— _any_ version of Jon. It's… it's all just them, he thinks; it's _all just them._

"I don't know," Jon says, and his grip tightens around Martin's hand. "I hope so. I—"

On the desk, the tape recorder explodes in static. Martin's head spins, the room turning sideways around him, and he hears an echo in his head, the conversation they had here, except they haven't now. _Which means that technically, I have the power to dismiss you, if this dog situation is not resolved immediately. Sorry! Sorry, sorry._ Martin can almost feel himself mouthing the words. He shuts his eyes, clutches at Jon's hand. "Martin," this Jon says, choked, "Martin, I'm so sorry—" and then it's all fading out, it's crumbling away before Martin can say that they said they'd do away with apologies—and that, well, it doesn't really matter, because _he's_ sorry, too—

\---

_The worms are faster in the tunnels. Martin's forgotten about that._

_Time's gone wrong, twisting in and out, pushing them the wrong way from the safehouse. They still have not managed to get back, not all the way. Martin's lost Jon somewhere in the loops and found him again. And then they've woken up here. In the tunnels, with the worms. Martin can't remember how they got here. They keep flashing in and out._

_During one of the steadier sections in the tunnel, Jon finds Martin's hand and holds on. "Things are putting themselves right," he says softly. "The other versions of us should be in the right place before long."_

_"Or the closest they can get," Martin mumbles, pushing his face into Jon's neck. "Why can't we get all the way back?"_

_"It's all wrong," says Jon. "It's too much. Things are changing. The timeline is falling apart."_

_"That's good, though, right?" says Martin. "If things are changing for the better… if we can save…"_

_"I know." Jon kisses the top of Martin's head and stops talking there._

_Martin swallows, hears the words again. The timeline is falling apart. If that's the case, that means… "If we fix this," Martin says, "if we change what happens… we might not be able to get back."_

_Jon's grip on his hand tightens. "I know. I know."_

_"It's worth it," says Martin, "if… if things are better. If everyone lives, and the world…" He can't finish. Of course it's worth it; it's always been worth it. But the thought of losing all the good parts, too…_

_"I love you," Jon says, in a response. He presses his forehead to Martin's. "I'll always love you. And… it's going to be all right."_

_Martin shuts his eyes, feels their eyelashes brush together, Jon's breath on his cheek. "I love you, too," he says softly. "I'll find you. Wherever we end up, I'll find you."_

_He feels Jon lift his hand and kiss his fingers, and then it all falls away. When he opens his eyes again, he is back in Daisy's living room. Jon's there, too—not his Jon, but a Jon Martin knew a long time ago. Martin can tell. "Martin," he says. "Martin, I'm sorry, I—I had to try. I had to. I… I really thought I could get you back all the way…"_

_"It worked," says Martin. "Or—sort of." He can see flashes of it: Jon, his Jon, is somewhere safe where Prentiss is not. And the other him is there, too._

_"What do you—oh," Jon says, realizing. "You're—the other Martin."_

_Martin smiles a little. "Same Martin, really. Just two years later."_

_"Oh. Right." The other Jon flushes a bit, looking down at his hands. "Martin—Martin, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Martin must give him a funny look, because Jon adds abruptly, "For—for how I've treated you. The things I said…"_

_"Oh, Jon—Jon, you—you don't have to apologize," says Martin. "You've already—"_

_"I haven't, yet, though. I haven't. And—I sent you away. Just now, I sent you away, and I promised we'd stay together…" Jon wrings his hands, looking miserable._

_You didn't do that to_ me, _Martin wants to say, but it isn't true—it was him, he remembers it. Remembers Jon's hands squeezing almost painfully around his as time crumbled like wet bread and Jon shouted apologies. It happened five minutes ago, it happened two years ago. And three full years in the past, Jon, this sweet, silly man, is trying to fire him so that he'll never have to go through any of it. And despite it all, things are putting themselves right._

_"Things are putting themselves right," Martin says. "Or… as right as they can be. Don't worry, Jon."_

_Jon looks confused, his eyes wide and wet. "What?" he says, faintly, and he reaches for Martin's hand before pulling it back, and the tape recorders are buzzing with static around them._

_Martin takes it, tentatively, and holds on. "I love you," he says, again, throat thick, because he isn't sure he'll have another chance to say it. Jon makes a choked sound somewhere in his throat. Martin amends: "I—I will love you. And—it's going to be okay."_

_It's what Jon said to him in the tunnels, two years or just a few minutes ago. It doesn't matter. Martin means it all._

_"Martin," Jon says. "Martin—" But it's all falling away by then._

\---

_Martin remembers one morning at the safehouse. He hasn't lived it yet, but he remembers it. He'd gotten up early and gone on a walk. Made a thermos of tea and went along the dirt paths he'd found in their first week, walked under the graying light of dawn. Stopped and scribbled a few lines in his notebook, when he could. None of it felt very good, but it was something. And something is better than nothing._

_Martin went back to the safehouse and poured the rest of the tea in a mug and took it upstairs, to Jon. He was awake now, of course, and he poked his head out of the comforter and shot a look not unlike a pout at Martin. "You were gone."_

_"Went on a walk," said Martin, cheerful, as he slid under the covers._

_Jon shuddered dramatically when Martin shoved his cold feet under his thigh and grabbed the mug. "I_ missed _you."_

_Martin pushed his face against the top of Jon's head. "You weren't awake. You could have come, you know, if you didn't insist on sleeping half the morning away."_

_"You're always lecturing me about my lack of sleep. You can't have it both ways, Martin." Jon grabbed his hand, tried to rub some warmth into it. His palms were warm from the tea, and his hair smelled like the shampoo they'd bought at the village store, and Martin loved him. He pulled his hand out of Jon's and put it against the side of Jon's face. Jon turned into it, his nose brushing the side of Martin's hand. "I missed you," he said quietly, voice raw, and Martin knew he wasn't talking about the walk. "I missed you, Martin."_

_Martin's throat was thick. He brushed his thumb over Jon's jaw and said, "I missed you, too." And that was all._

_There's no reason Martin should remember this, but he does. He just does. He's still got that left, if nothing else._

_He's lost Jon, just in the moment. He isn't in the office anymore, and he isn't sure if he ever was. He's waking up in the storage room. He's on the couch and Jon's holding his hand. He's at his desk, on Jon's couch now. He's in the tunnels._

_He's in the bed, in the safehouse, waking up, and he doesn't know where he is. He twists the hair tie around his wrist. Jon's beside him and he says, "Martin? What the hell is going on? What are you doing here? Wh-where are we?"_

_Martin knows. He knows this time, he does. He twists the hair tie. He sees it all, behind his eyes, how they got here, where they've been, where they're going. He knows, and he thinks Jon might know, too, wherever he is. He opens his mouth and he says, "Jon—"_

\---

 _Martin,_ someone says. Not Jon. Not himself. Another voice. _Martin! Martin!_ And then, clearer: "Martin?"

Martin blinks himself awake, slowly, world spinning around him. Dark above him, stone below him. And someone prodding the side of his face, in an attempt to wake him. Martin blinks again and the shape above him shifts into a person, a face. Sasha. Eyes wide behind her glasses, bandages stretched across her forehead and around her hands. "Oh, Martin, thank god," she says, sounding relieved, offering a hand to help him up. "We… we couldn't find you."

Martin takes her hand, lets her pull him to a sitting position. "What… what happened?" he says faintly. "Where _am_ I?" _When I am,_ he doesn't say, because Sasha will probably think he's insane. He can't take his eyes off the bandages, on Sasha's hands and face and arms. The little blots of blood underneath. 

"The tunnels," Sasha says, quiet. "We… we lost you in the tunnels. You were in the tunnels, and we were supposed to come down with you, and when we came back… Prentiss was attacking, and we couldn't… couldn't find you. We thought maybe you'd… you'd gone back up into the top, and so we went up, and…" She winces a little, shakes her head. "Doesn't matter. We… I'm glad you're all right. What happened, where's Jon?"

"Jon?" Martin looks up and down the tunnel, tries to stand, but the dizziness overtakes him and he sinks to the floor again, Sasha's hands on his arms. "I don't… I don't know where…" he says, half mumbling, still looking up and down the hall. "Sasha, I don't _remember_." 

Sasha's hands press against his arms, bulky from the bandages. "Martin?"

Martin doesn't answer. His hands fumble, instinctively, towards his pockets, and he pulls out a small scrap of a photo. A Polaroid, one of the ones from the fridge in Daisy's safe house. He doesn't remember putting it there, but he holds it up to his face, eyes moving over the image. All the faces are familiar, he's relieved to see: himself, Jon, Tim—and Sasha. _Sasha._ Same glasses, same long hair, same smile. Martin looks back and forth from the photo to the real Sasha, and it's still her in both places. The real Sasha. 

"It's you," Martin says, muffedly. "The _real_ you." 

Sasha grabs his hand. "You're back, aren't you?" she says, prodding. "Martin? _Our_ Martin, from our time?"

Martin looks down at the photo, closes his hand around it. Nods numbly. 

"Oh, thank _god,_ " Sasha says, voice thick with relief, and she wraps her arms hard around him. "We were so _worried._ D-don't get me wrong, Martin, I liked the other you fine, but you… they said you were in an _apocalypse_ or something. We… didn't know if we'd ever get you back." 

"You're _alive_ ," says Martin, hugging her back tightly. "A-and Tim?"

"Tim's fine, he's… he's looking for Jon, but he's…" Sasha sniffles a little, wiping at her eyes, and pulls back from the embrace. "Prentiss attacked," she says. "Things… things went wrong. We… we lost you and Jon. In the tunnels." 

"The worms got you," Martin says, voice rasping with panic. Certain of this, wracked with guilt over the fact; he's beyond relieved that Sasha's survived, but he never meant for this, for Sasha or Tim to get hurt. 

"Better than being dead," Sasha says wryly, pushing up her glasses to wipe at her eyes. "The, uh, other you filled us in on everything. Jon, too. It took a bit; you didn't think we'd believe you. They wanted to do it all themselves. They were trying to avoid going upstairs at all when Prentiss… Martin, what _happened?_ How did you get back?"

"I… I don't know. All of it went wrong, when we tried to get back, and we couldn't… Jon tried to send me back alone, and I…" Martin rubs at his eyes. "W-where's Jon? Where—y-you said you haven't found him?" 

"Tim, Tim, Martin's awake," Sasha says, looking down the hall. And then Tim is there, tired and ragged and similarly coated in bandages, but looking incredibly relieved, and Martin is leaning in abruptly to hug Tim, too, echoes of Tim's tape playing in his head. Tim's _alive._ "Oof," says Tim, hugging him back. "You all right, Mart-o? Where's Jon?"

"Tim, no, it's _our_ Martin," says Sasha. "He's back."

"He's _back?_ " says Tim, incredulously. "Martin? Um, first Martin? Is it really you?"

"You're both _alive,_ " Martin says muffedly into Tim's shoulder. "Tim, I'm so sorry."

Tim stiffens a little, before tightening his arms around Martin. "Can't apologize for something that hasn't happened yet, Martin."

 _Something that won't happen,_ Martin thinks. Dares to allow himself to think. He tries to say something else—another apology, maybe, for the worms or for leaving them alone or for letting them die in the first place—or to tell them how good it is to see them—but what comes out is, "The _worms_." 

"Lucked out there, huh?" Tim says dryly. "Yeah, it's… it's… we wanted to make sure you and Jon were okay."

"We haven't found Jon yet," says Sasha quietly, as Martin pulls back from the embrace. "He's… somewhere down here, I guess."

"Didn't you guys come back together?" Tim asks. "I mean… we figured you would. The two of you were pretty inseparable during the… switch."

"I… I don't know." Martin shuts his eyes, dizziness and dots swimming across his vision. "He sent me back alone. Our Jon, I mean, he sent me back alone. We… we couldn't get all the way back, and he…" He breaks this off, looks at the ground. "Something went right," he adds. "I guess. But I don't know if…" He swallows hard, shakes his head. "I need to find him. I need to…"

"You need to rest, Martin, you can barely stand," Tim says. "You look _horrible._ "

"You were just attacked by _worms,_ the two of you shouldn't be looking, either," says Martin, and he pulls himself to his feet. He's _got_ to find Jon, he's got to, he can't… _Will I see you again,_ he'd said, and Jon had said he hoped so, and it _has_ to end that way, it has to, they weren't supposed to leave each other again. If Jon is down here, alone and disoriented and lost, then Martin _has_ to find him. 

But he sways forward when he's fully on his feet, and Tim has to catch him. "Whoa, Martin, you—you shouldn't be walking around like this, you need to rest."

"Sit and catch your breath for a second, okay?" Sasha says, gently. "We'll find him. We will."

Dots swim across his vision as Tim helps him sit. Martin lets his head rest hopelessly against the wall, says, "You… should be resting, too, you know…" 

"We can all go home and recuperate once we've found Jon," Sasha says. "You… you rest, okay? Stay down here. You told us Elias can't see us down here."

Martin thinks he remembers that from the tapes. He wants to argue, wants to insist he needs to go along and find Jon himself, but all he has the energy to do is nod. Tim offers to stay with him, but Martin just shakes his head; they'll probably find Jon faster with both of them. And Jon, any version of Jon, will be so happy to see them. In a way, it might actually be good he isn't going—give Jon the chance at his own reunion, with the two people who are way more Jon's friends than his. 

So he lets Sasha and Tim go, reluctantly, and he rests his head against the wall and shuts his eyes, and lets it all swim through his head. The loops. The apocalypse. The safehouse. Jon's flat. Jon in the office on that first day, Jon in the tunnels, Jon on the couch in the safehouse. _I'm so glad I met you. I love you; I'll always love you. I sent you away; I'm so sorry._ He remembers all of it, even if it wasn't all him. (Except it was, he thinks; it was.) It's all tangled up, but he can see most it, he can. He remembers. And he can't stop thinking—can't stop wondering, worrying, any of it—that Jon might not have made it back, too. 

Intellectually, he knows this is silly— _some_ version of Jon has to be here. But maybe he isn't. Maybe Martin's lost him on one of the loops, and it's all wrong, and now Jon is gone. Or maybe he won't remember, he won't remember any of it—won't remember anything before that night when they got switched. (Martin fell asleep in the storage room. Jon fell asleep at his desk.) It doesn't matter, Martin tells himself, as long as Jon is alive and all right—but a selfish part of him does not want to be alone here. Does not want to have forgotten it all, have the sole responsibility of saving everyone, and be the only one with these memories, lose all these experiences they've shared… He knows it's silly. But he doesn't want that. 

_Will I see you again? I don't know. I hope so._ And Martin hopes; he can't help it. He doesn't want to be alone again. They'd said they were in this together. 

Martin isn't sure how long he sits there, head against the wall, swimming with the loops. As much as time has gone funny lately, it could be any amount of time, really. But whatever it is, minutes or hours later, Martin hears it: rapid, if unsteady, footsteps, and then Jon's frantic voice: " _Martin?_ " 

Martin opens his eyes and sees Jon sagging forward on his knees, next to Martin, looking worn out and dizzy but _alive._ "Jon," Martin says, voice shaking. "Jon?" Jon's eyes are wide and worried, and Martin is so happy to see him. "You're… you're back," Martin says. "You made it back."

" _You_ made it back," Jon says softly. His eyes are wet now. "I… I didn't know."

"You _idiot_ ," says Martin, thick with affection and scolding all at once, and he pushes forward to wrap his arms around Jon. "Jon, you idiot, what were you _thinking?_ " Most of the malice is gone. He doesn't have the energy to be angry, not really. Not when they're both _here_ now, safe and alive and whole in the _right time,_ and they can _fix things now._

Jon leans into the embrace, lifting his own arms to wrap tentatively on Martin. "I'm sorry," he mumbles. "I-I'm _so_ sorry, Martin, I—I thought it would _work._ "

Martin thinks about saying other things— _It did,_ or _You said that time was putting itself right, so I think it would've happened whether you'd done anything or not,_ or even _It's okay_ —but what he says instead is, "You're _here,_ you made it back." Jon nods, his nose brushing against Martin's collarbone, his arms tightening around Martin. Martin rests his head against Jon's and shuts his eyes, sinking into this deep wave of relief and… and rightness. Like this is absolutely where they are supposed to be.

\---

Tim and Sasha find them a few minutes later, reeling and tired, and they both embrace Jon in a frenzied relief. Sasha suggests they stay and talk things over, try to figure it all out, but Jon insists they go home and rest. "We have time enough to figure this out," he says. Maybe more time than they've ever had before. They're all _alive._ They're all alive, and in the right year, and Martin can't stop wondering at the marvel of it all. 

There hadn't been much discussion of where they'd go, after all of this. In the tunnels, when Martin said something about the cot, Jon had said, "Don't be ridiculous, Martin. You can't stay in the Archives, and all of your things are at my flat. It only makes sense for you to come back with me." And Martin, thinking of the dream where he saw them sitting on the couch, had said, "O-only until I find somewhere else, of course." And Jon's face had done something funny and said, "O-of course," paused, and then added, "You can stay as long as you want." 

And now they're here. Back on Jon's couch in Jon's flat that Martin hasn't really seen before, except he has. In the dreams. And in the bits and pieces of things he's seen before that. He recognizes a throw from the safe house, draped over an arm of the couch. He'd loved that throw. He'd always hogged it, to tease Jon a little, and Jon would pretend to fight with him over it before letting him have it anyway, and Martin would roll his eyes and pull it over the both of them anyway. 

He can't picture the safe house anymore, not really. He reaches for the memories and they crumble like sand. He doesn't know what it looked like, can't recall most of the conversations they'd had, or how things had come to end. But there _are_ bits and pieces like that, that Martin's been able to hold onto. The throw. The little notes Jon would leave around the house. The brand of tea they liked from the village. The pictures they put on the fridge. The drive from the train station to the house, holding hands over the cup holders. The bed he woke up in, days or months ago. He can't remember what the eye looked like, the one in the sky, but he can remember the color of the quilt on that bed. It's slightly ridiculous, but Martin doesn't mind. 

He remembers the important parts, too, most of them. The marks and Elias's plan. The rituals. How Tim and Sasha died. The Lonely and how he got out. Everyone they met along the way. He remembers the facts of the loops, but none of the details, and maybe this is good, too. That they know what to avoid, but can't remember the pain that comes with _why_ they'll need to avoid it. This is as good as anything, he guesses, as long as they know what's coming. As long as they can prepare for what's coming. (He doesn't think he wants to walk around knowing everything that may or may not happen in the future anyway; that sounds like a miserable way to live. Martin won't pretend he isn't a little upset, at the prospect of having lost all of the good things—all the things he _wanted_ to remember—but now there is the potential to make new memories. And Martin would rather have that then the memory of something that never actually happened to him.) 

Jon remembers things a little better than Martin—he says he is going to write it all down, soon—but it's in a similar manner, where a lot of the details are gone. "I can't picture it clearly," he says. "It's like… remembering something that happened a long, long time ago." He also says that most of the Beholding is gone, and what's left certainly isn't to the same degree that it was in 2018. "I… don't need statements to survive," he says. "Not like I did. And I don't think I can… smite people. And I feel like I'm in control, of what all I Know. But beyond that… I'm not completely human, the way I was before."

"Right," says Martin, thinking of the first day, the one he was just at. The people they were then. The people they were initially, the people they were when they were pushed forward in time. He can't even remember what he said to Jon, that night; it feels like it was months, or years, ago. He feels different now, like he is a different person. Like Jon is different, too. And where they go from here… Martin isn't sure. 

He changes the subject. "We were… displaced in the past… er, here… a lot longer than we were in the future, weren't we?" he says. 

Jon nods, almost stiffly. "Three months. We… we wanted to hold on. We wanted to make sure we all survived the Prentiss attacks."

"We lost track of the dates," Martin says, almost remembering. "We were… hiding in the tunnels, preparing, we thought we'd be safer there, and we lost track of the dates, and…"

"We tried to get back on the day that Prentiss attacked," Jon says, wincing. "God, I… I can't believe… Tim and Sasha were eaten by worms because of me, _again._ "

"That's not your fault, Jon. You did everything you could," says Martin. "You can't blame yourself for that— _they_ don't blame you. We—we _warned_ them." He can see it in his head now: the four of them sitting around Jon's living room, Tim and Sasha staring at them in disbelief. "It's—it could've happened to any of us, it could have."

"It didn't, though," Jon says softly, and Martin sees him staring down at his hands and arms. His _bare_ hands and arms, and this is when it registers to Martin that Jon is not bandaged. That Jon doesn't have any marks from the worms. 

His breath catches in his throat; he says, "You're… you're not marked."

"No. Not this mark, at least." Jon spreads his fingers, turns his hands over and over. "But… Tim and Sasha are. And Elias may target them… or he'll… he'll probably try to arrange another situation wherein the Corruption can mark me…"

"Maybe… maybe he will," says Martin. "But… we'll know it's coming, remember? We'll… we'll know what's coming."

"Yes." Jon sighs, leaning back against the couch with his hands over his face. "Yes, we will."

Martin chews absently on his thumbnail, looks down at Jon's coffee table. They've kept the Polaroids out, the ones of all of them, and so far everyone looks the same. Jon's gotten his phone out; he's been messaging Georgie. Martin remembers that; he's been talking with Melanie, too. Daisy and Basira aren't involved yet, because Gertrude's body hasn't been found. They hadn't decided what to do about that yet. Haven't decided what to do about Leitner, either; they know enough that there doesn't seem to be much point in seeking out, and Jon is fairly sure that bringing him out will only end in another false murder charge. No point in pursuing the Unknowing; Tim didn't take that one well, but they did agree on that. And on top of that, the ritual is still a year out. They probably have several months before the Circus comes for Jon, and by then, they'll surely be ready. (They _will._ ) Jon isn't marked, and Prentiss is dead. And they are _alive._ Sasha is alive, and all the rest of them… they're _all_ alive, and all right. 

It almost seems too good to be true. After all the loops, the endless popping in and out of time without changing anything—even after Martin _killed Elias,_ and himself and Jon, and it didn't stick—they're back here, exactly where they wanted to be. It seems too good to be true. 

"Jon, we're… we're here for good, aren't we?" says Martin. "We're not being pulled back in time again?"

Jon sighs again, sits up straighter and looks at Martin. "I… I think so. Whatever versions of us there ever were… I think they're here to stay." 

Martin tries not to think too hard about what this means. About what it _could_ mean. Tells himself it doesn't matter, that he barely even remembers the part of himself that he used to be. (That he would be.) Tells himself that a part of that version must be here, if he can remember parts of things that haven't happened yet. This is enough, because it has to be. _I'll find you,_ he'd told Jon, in the tunnels, before. _Wherever we end up, I'll find you._ And he has, he thinks; here they are. 

"That's... good," he says out loud. "We made it. We made it back where we're supposed to be."

"We did. We did." There's a lot of relief in Jon's voice; there's other things there, other things that make Martin wonder if Jon is thinking about what he is thinking about—where these other versions of them have ended up—but there is mostly relief. They've done it, this is a victory. 

Martin swallows hard, rubs a hand over his mouth. "So..." he says, hushed, "... what do we do now?"

"I... I don't know," Jon says quietly. "Martin... I don't think we _have_ to know. Not yet. We're... we're safe and we're back and everyone is alive, we don't... we've got time to figure this all out. We've got _time._ And... and we don't have to figure it all out tonight."

Martin lets out a stunned laugh. "Is this really happening? Jon Sims, wanting to put off figuring things out so we can rest?"

Jon snorts, too, one hand over his mouth. "I... to tell you the truth, I'm tired, Martin. I'm very tired. And... I know we still have a lot of things left to do. Too many things to do, and I—right now, I'd just like to..."

"Yeah," Martin says quickly. "Yeah, I know." On an impulse, an automatic movement he doesn't even consider, he reaches for Jon's hand; he doesn't realize what he's doing until his fingers have already brushed over the back of Jon's hand. He starts to pull back, then, but Jon slips his hand into Martin's before he can. Martin goes with it, a little grateful, slips his fingers through Jon's and holds on. A part of him thought he'd never have this again, but here it is. It makes him think they really might be okay. "We can do that, all right? We can rest. We _should_ rest. I know Sasha and Tim are doing the same thing, and... and I think we've definitely earned it. We have, we've earned it. And... and when we're ready, we'll start it over. And we'll do things better next time."

Jon is quiet for a moment. He clears his throat, says uncertainly, "Do you... do you really think we can fix this? That there's any version of this that is... better?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I do," says Martin. "I have to believe that. I don't... this has to have happened for a reason. And I don't think whatever... scrambled time like this did it so we could live things through, except worse this time. I think we're being given a second chance."

"You thought there was a way to turn things back, in the safe house," Jon says. Martin could ask, _Which time,_ but he doesn't. "And I didn't believe it was possible. I... I should have believed you."

Martin smiles a little. He can't help it. "Sure, Jon. But when have you ever believed me?"

Jon laughs a little and squeezes his hand. "I should have. I do now, I do."

Martin leans towards Jon, just a little, and their shoulders brush together. "I do, too." 

There's a lot to say here. _I trust you, I believe you, I'm with you._ Even _I love you,_ even if Martin isn't fully ready for that yet. But he doesn't think he needs to verbalize it all. He thinks Jon Knows. Jon always knows.

They fall asleep on the couch, again. Martin hopes this won't be a habit, he'd rather this stay in the past, but for now, he'll take it. It's a dreamless sleep, as far as Martin can tell—if he does dream, he doesn't remember it, but his head is silly with remembering the safehouse when he opens his eyes. And his hand is intertwined with Jon's again.

\---

_They're on the couch in the safehouse, now. They're sitting together, Jon slumped into Martin's chest and Martin's arms around him, and this is the first time Jon has dreamed of anything besides the statements in a long time. The curtains are open, and there is no eye in the sky, and the sun is shining. It should be impossible, all of it, but here they are._

_"Is this real?" Martin says, against the back of Jon's head. His eyes are burning like he is going to cry, which is odd for a dream, but he doesn't see how it could be real._

_"I don't know," Jon says. He shifts, leaning further into Martin; he kisses the sides of Martin's hands. "Does... does it matter?"_

_Martin shakes his head. They're together. They're together here, wherever this is, and when they wake up, they'll still be together. That's more than he could ever ask for._

_There'll be things to do when they wake up. Things to find, people to warn, plans to make. They'll need to talk to Sasha and Tim, make sure they're all on the same page this time. They'll need to explain things to Melanie, make sure she has a way out; they'll need to decide what to tell Basira and Daisy, if anything. They'll need to figure out how they're going to hide all of this from Elias, assuming he doesn't already know. They'll need to get started on becoming some version of the people they became, or will become—or that version of themselves will have to say their piece, depending on how you look at it._

_There's a lot left to do, a lot left to figure out, and they still may not end up where they were before, in the places they would actually want to be. Martin has a feeling that they won't ever actually see this safehouse again in real life. But that doesn't seem to matter. They've got a second chance, now, in 2016, and here, they have this. The remnants of whatever they'd built and destroyed. It isn't all gone. They'll still have this, even if it isn't permanent, a warped version of the dream magic that Jon has dealt with since he really became the Archivist. They have this._

_Martin tightens his arms around Jon, kisses the back of Jon's head, smiles a little into his hair when Jon slips his fingers through Martin's. He doesn't know how long they'll have left, like this, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't. He just wants to enjoy the time they have left._

__

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i borrowed some dialogue from the magnus archives liveshow. as always, this is not my dialogue, and eternal thanks goes to the transcripts archive for helping with this. 
> 
> a million thanks to @corvidtowers, @chromaticmelody, and @eternallysadaboutjontim for their art, and to @bisexualoftheblade for their art and all their help in making this fic happen. thank you also to everyone who helped out with beta-ing. i owe a lot of this fic to your help! and thank you to the mods and creators of the TMA 2020 Big Bang for putting this event together. it was so much fun, and i enjoyed doing it a lot. 
> 
> this fic started as a complete impulse, and also as a mild merging of 2 ideas i had back in august (what if jon and martin from early on in the show woke up in season 5, and what if jon ended up time traveling back to his first meeting with martin and ACTUALLY tried to fire him in order to save him from the archives). it's definitely gone a lot farther than i ever envisioned, and it's been a lot of fun to write. i'm glad i was able to contribute something to the widespread canon of tma time travel fics. i have no plans at the moment to continue this fic in a widespread manner (mostly because rewriting the whole show is something i've tried before with ahs, and i'm not really prepared to try that again), but you know, never say never. i wouldn't mind doing short companion pieces at some point, or something like that.
> 
> finally, thank you to all of you who have been reading, commenting, and leaving kudos on this fic. i really appreciate your support and your kind words. as always, you can find me on tumblr @ghostbustermelanieking.


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